Windowskernen

Windowskernen, or the Windows kernel, is the central component of the Windows operating system in the Windows NT family. It runs in kernel mode and provides the fundamental services that manage hardware, processes, memory, and input/output. The kernel interfaces with hardware through the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) and exposes core primitives to other system components and device drivers.

Architecturally, the Windows kernel comprises ntoskrnl.exe (the kernel itself) plus core components such as the Memory Manager, I/O Manager, Dispatcher and Scheduler, and the Object Manager. Together, they handle thread scheduling, virtual memory management and paging, synchronization, and I/O processing. The HAL abstracts platform-specific hardware details, enabling Windows to run on a range of processors and chipsets.

Drivers and kernel-mode services communicate with the kernel via I/O request packets (IRPs) and a structured object model. The Windows Driver Model (WDM) and newer Windows Driver Frameworks (KMDF/UMDF) provide the development framework for drivers that operate in kernel mode under Windowskernen.

User-mode subsystems rely on the kernel for execution and services; a portion of the graphics and windowing stack, including Win32k, runs in kernel space in many Windows versions. Over the evolution of the Windows NT family, Windowskernen has been extended to support 64-bit architectures, improved security (such as PatchGuard for kernel protection), virtualization integration (Hyper-V), and modern hardware features like multi-core CPUs and NUMA. The kernel remains a central focus for stability, performance, and security across Windows releases.