Computer Operating System Questions and Answers

Answer: D

Correct answer: floppy disk

Access time rises as you move away from the processor, and the floppy disk is the slowest of the four: its motor must often spin up, it turns at only a few hundred revolutions per minute, and its head steps slowly. Cache is the fastest, swapping devices are built for speed, and a hard disk is far quicker than a diskette.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Use the SETVER command

Some older programs check the DOS version and refuse to run on a later one. SETVER keeps a table of such programs and the version number each should be told, so the application sees the version it expects and runs unchanged.

Answer: D

Correct answer: one which is enclosed by a pair of P and V operations on semaphores

A critical region is the code that accesses a shared resource, and it is protected by bracketing it with the semaphore operations P (wait) and V (signal), so that only one process is inside at a time. The definition is about the protection, not about the code being buggy.

Answer: B

Correct answer: primary storage

The parts of the operating system that must respond at any moment - the interrupt handlers, the scheduler, the memory manager - have to be in primary storage the whole time the machine is running, since the processor can only execute what is in memory. Less-used routines may be left on disk and fetched when needed.

Answer: C

Correct answer: RESTORE

Files written by the DOS BACKUP command are held in a special packed form, so an ordinary COPY cannot retrieve them; only the matching RESTORE command can unpack them back to the disk.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Windows 2000

Windows 2000 is the only one of these with a server edition, bringing Active Directory, domain logon, and centrally administered file, print and application services. Windows 95 and 98 support peer-to-peer sharing but have no domain controller and no central security database, and MS-DOS has no networking of its own at all.

Answer: C

Correct answer: FORMAT A: /S

FORMAT A: /S formats the diskette and then copies the system files onto it, so the disk is left bootable in a single command. SYS A: transfers the system files but only to a disk that is already formatted.

Answer: B

Correct answer: connecting a number of devices to a controller

A daisy chain runs the control signal from the controller through each device in turn, so many devices share one set of lines. Priority follows the order in the chain, since the nearest device sees the grant signal first and may take it.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Assembler or translator

The assembler (or compiler) is what knows which fields of the generated code hold addresses, because it generated them, so it emits the relocation bits alongside the object code. The relocating loader then reads those bits and adds the load address to exactly those fields.

Answer: A

Correct answer: is usually the primary user interface

The command interpreter - the shell - is what the user actually talks to: it reads each command, finds the program that implements it, and runs it. It accepts free-format lines rather than fixed ones, and is a program like any other, which is why a system can offer several.