The functions of system software and their modes of processing, tasks carried out by utility applications, the role of antivirus software and the importance of regular system updates.
An operating system (OS) is software that is loaded by the computer after boot-upTo load an operating system into the computer's memory. It effectively means to start up the computer. Boot is short for bootstrap or bootstrap load.. The operating system:
controls the operations of the hardware in a computer system
manages all other software
What is provided by the OS depends on the purpose of the individual device.
For example, the OS on your phone will perform different tasks (providing a graphical user interface) compared to the OS found in the embedded system of a typical car (controlling fuel consumption). Examples of operating systems are iOS, Windows and Android.
Operating system software
The role of the OS is to control the hardware and software to ensure all parts of the computer can work together. It also provides us with the ability to interact with the computer.
Memory allocation
Memory management: the OS keeps track of every memory location and is responsible for making memory available for different processes, such as allocating free space in memory to programs. The OS also deals with virtual memoryA section of a computer storage drive which is temporarily used as RAM. and swapping pages in and out of RAMRandom access memory. This is volatile memory that is constantly being written to and read from. It does not retain its contents without a constant supply of power. When a computer is turned off, everything stored in its RAM is lost..
Storage
File management: the OS is responsible for organising and keeping track of files in a computer system. It organises where and how files are stored, found, read and deleted. The file management system of an OS can:
find existing files
allocate space to new files
keep track of all available space
It is the file management system that allows us to see data held on secondary storage devices, such as external hard drives using programs like File Explorer on Windows or Finder on OSX. File management programs provide a GUIGraphical user interface - used to interact with a computer through icons and menus. for accessing file systems.