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 In general, the kernel is the core of an operating system (OS) that provides basic services for other parts of the OS and for applications. In Windows 95 and 98, the Kernel is one of the three core system components, along with User and the Graphics Device Interface (GDI).
Each of these components or modules consist of two dynamic-link libraries (dll's): one 16-bit (Gdi.exe, User.exe and Krnl386.exe) and one 32-bit (Gdi32.dll, User32.dll and Kernel32.dll).
Kernel32.dll takes care of memory management, handling input/output operations and interrupts etc. It is used continuously and when Windows starts up it is loaded in a protected memory space. This is also the case for the other Kernel components. Dll's are libraries of code that contain routines that are needed and used by other applications and other programs (for instance other dll's), so they have to be stand-by to link dynamically to an application or a program whenever it requests a service. (Just for the record: an application is a program that provides its services directly to the user, for example word processors, spread sheets, etc.). An example: whenever you start up Internet Explorer, the services of Advapi32.dll, User32.dll, Shlwapi.dll and Kernel32.dll are called upon. User32.dll also calls Gdi32.dll and, again, Kernel32.dll, and so on. Depending on what you do with IE, more routines from the same or other dll's will be needed.
The Kernel adresses a seperate memory area which cannot or should not be accessed by applications or other components of the operating system. If this does occur, for instance with an invalid page fault, it is mostly due to a flaw in the application and not in the Kernel of the operating system. |
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