Editing Hardware abstraction (section)

===Microsoft Windows===
[[File:Windows_2000_architecture.svg|thumb|The hardware abstraction layer in the [[architecture of Windows NT]]]]
The [[Windows NT]] kernel has a HAL in the kernel space between hardware and the executive services that are contained in the file [[ntoskrnl.exe|NTOSKRNL.EXE]]<ref name="nthal"/><ref name="Custer_1993"/> under ''%WINDOWS%\system32\hal.dll''. This allows portability of the Windows NT kernel-mode code to a variety of processors, with different [[memory management unit]] architectures, and a variety of systems with different I/O bus architectures; most of that code runs without change on those systems, when compiled for the [[instruction set]] applicable to those systems. For example, the [[Silicon Graphics|SGI]] Intel x86-based workstations were not [[IBM PC compatible]] workstations, but due to the HAL, [[Windows 2000]] was able to run on them.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Changing hardware abstraction layer in Windows 2000 / XP – Smallvoid.com|date=15 January 2001 |url=http://smallvoid.com/article/winnt-hardware-abstraction-layer.html|access-date=2020-09-18|language=en-US}}</ref>{{failed verification|date=October 2022}}

Since [[Windows Vista]] and [[Windows Server 2008]], the HAL used is automatically determined during [[Windows Vista startup process|startup]].<ref name="Russinovich_2008"/>