Operating System Query

edited March 2009 in Science & Tech
Hello,
Can we execute any simple program without installing any Operating system? This question asked me at the time of my interview and i won't be able to answering that question so if anybody know the answer then please tell me. I need your answer.

Thanks

Comments

  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited March 2009
    Sorta.

    To run an application on a computer it needs to have some kind of operating system that it runs on top of. However that doesn't mean that the operating has to be installed on the computer. There are plenty of examples of applications that are designed to run off a floppy/cd/thumb drive that run off a micro kernel or a bootstrap loader. Memtest is probably one of the more commonly known applications to do that.

    Then there are other stand alone applications that run off a disk that loads dos or linux first and then auto runs the application. This is often scene in hardware/firmware upgrade programs, disk recovery software like ghost etc..... You boot up with the disk in, it loads the OS off the disk and then runs the application. You don't need to install the OS ahead of time.
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