Firmware and Boot Environment

For Plug and Play and power management support under Microsoft Windows operating systems, the system and its firmware must comply with Advanced Configuration and Power Interface Specification (ACPI).

ACPI firmware entries are the same for supporting all versions of Windows for x86 and x64 architectures. EFI firmware is required for 64-bit Windows on Intel Itanium-based systems.

System Firmware for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

	Configuring Windows HotStart
	Direct Application Launch from System Startup in Windows Vista and Windows 7
	Firmware Enhancements for PCs Running Windows 7
	Firmware Memory Corruption during Sleep Transitions

System Firmware - WinHEC 2008

UEFI Momentum - the AMD Perspective [WinHEC 2008; 1.2 MB]

Boot Environment

	BCDEdit Commands for Boot Environment
	Boot Configuration Data in Windows Vista
	Custom Bootstrap Actions in Windows Vista
	iSCSI Boot Firmware Table (iBFT)
	Modifications to Microsoft Boot Components: Update
	Windows Vista PreOS Environment (Windows Kernel Dev team on Channel 9)

System Firmware for Windows Vista

	BIOS Communication for Display Drivers in Windows Vista
	Firmware Allocation of PCI Device Resources in Windows
	Simple Boot Flag Specification
	Boot Configuration Data (BCD)

System Management BIOS (SMBIOS)

	SMBIOS Support in Windows
	Administration and Management in the MSDN Library

UEFI - WinHEC 2007

	UEFI Implementation Guidelines [WinHEC 2007; 292 KB]
	UEFI Implementation Guidelines [WinHEC 2007; Streaming media]

Unified Extensible Firmware Interface - EFI

	Installing Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 on UEFI Systems
	Microsoft Extensible Firmware Initiative FAT32 File System Specification, V. 1.03
	Microsoft Portable Executable and Common Object File Format Specification
	UEFI and Windows
	UEFI Support and Requirements for Windows Operating Systems
	Windows Authenticode Portable Executable Signature Format
	Unified EFI Update [WinHEC 2005; 493 KB]
	Extensible Firmware Interface Specification
	Implementing the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface with Intel's Framework

Kernel Enhancements - WinHEC 2006

	Inside the Windows Pre-Boot and Boot Environment [WinHEC 2006; 272 KB]
	Kernel Plug and Play Support in Windows Vista [WinHEC 2006; 354 KB]

Firmware Specifications

	IA-64 Systems and ACPI 2.0 64-bit Tables
	Windows Hardware Instrumentation Implementation Guidelines (WHIIG)
	Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) based on PXE Specification, v. 2.1
	Universal Serial Bus PC Legacy Compatibility Specification

See Also

	Archived White Papers
	Power Management and ACPI

Top of page