Windows® 98 Unleashed

Understanding the Windows 98 Shutdown Process

We began at the beginning by looking at how Windows 98 starts up. Now we'll end at the ending by examining the Windows 98 shutdown process.

The Shut Down Command

One of the cardinal rules when working with Windows 3.x was that you should always exit Windows and wait until you got to the DOS prompt before turning off your computer. This gave the Windows cache a chance to flush, and it prevented damage to Program Manager's groups and icons.

This rule still applies to Windows 98 and is, in fact, even more important, for the following reasons:

• Windows 98's write-behind cache waits for idle CPU time before it writes data from the cache to the hard disk. If you turn off your machine willy-nilly, you could ...