>The operating system boots from the "boot" partition
That's why the "Boot" tag moves to whichever partition is host to the running OS. The "system", as in the boot loader, is not the OS, is separate from the OS, and initializes before the OS.
>About SysWow64/System32 sure it has been done for compatibility reasons but while System32 had to be kept, the name of the "new" folder could have been better chosen, like (say) Old32Sys, or Legacy32, or similar.
The name stems from the Windows on Windows[1] subsystem, or WoW for short, which serves to execute 16-bit executables on 32-bit Windows NT. The most famous component of this subsystem is NTVDM[2].
Windows 32-bit on Windows 64-bit[3], or WoW64 for short, is the 32-bit practical equivalent to WoW for 64-bit Windows NT. Whereas WoW relied heavily on virtualization and emulation, WoW64 instead presents a 32-bit system library that 32-bit programs are silently redirected to.
As an aside, C:\Windows\System is still around for backwards compatibility even in 64-bit Windows. It houses 16-bit binaries.[4]
On Bios, the BIOS executes code in the MBR (Master Boot Record) that chainloads the PBR (Partition Boot Record) of the active (or boot) flagged partition in the partition table.
The code in the PBR (Partition Boot Record) chainloads a file named BOOTMGR (which is a boot manager) that looks at what to boot in a file residing in the \boot folder called BCD (Boot Configuration Data).
Q:How do you call the partition (volume) where this stuff is?
I know how Windows Boot Manager (aka WBM, BOOTMGR) works. :P
EFI or BIOS loads WBM, which resides in the EFI system partition or active partition (also tagged "System") as applicable, which then reads the Boot Configuration Data (aka BCD) also located in that partition. Windows itself is located in a separate partition from WBM and BCD.[1]
WBM then boots a specified Windows installation from a given partition, which is tagged as "Boot". If desired, WBM can also chainload into another bootloader (eg: NTLDR, Windows 9x bootloader, GRUB, etc.) to boot something other than Windows NT6 and up.[2]
That's why the "Boot" tag moves to whichever partition is host to the running OS. The "system", as in the boot loader, is not the OS, is separate from the OS, and initializes before the OS.
>About SysWow64/System32 sure it has been done for compatibility reasons but while System32 had to be kept, the name of the "new" folder could have been better chosen, like (say) Old32Sys, or Legacy32, or similar.
The name stems from the Windows on Windows[1] subsystem, or WoW for short, which serves to execute 16-bit executables on 32-bit Windows NT. The most famous component of this subsystem is NTVDM[2].
Windows 32-bit on Windows 64-bit[3], or WoW64 for short, is the 32-bit practical equivalent to WoW for 64-bit Windows NT. Whereas WoW relied heavily on virtualization and emulation, WoW64 instead presents a 32-bit system library that 32-bit programs are silently redirected to.
As an aside, C:\Windows\System is still around for backwards compatibility even in 64-bit Windows. It houses 16-bit binaries.[4]
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_on_Windows
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_DOS_machine#Windows_NT...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WoW64
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_folder#List_of_special...