A technician is booting a laptop that has Windows 10 installed with 2 GB RAM. The boot process is currently working on the following step: NTOSKRNL.EXE starts the login file called WINLOGON.EXE. What is the next step that will happen in the boot process?

At the stage where NTOSKRNL.EXE starts the login file called WINLOGON.EXE during the Windows 10 boot process, the next step that will happen is:

• WINLOGON.EXE displays the Windows Welcome screen.

In the Windows boot process, after the kernel (NTOSKRNL.EXE) has been loaded and starts the WINLOGON.EXE, the next step is for WINLOGON.EXE to present the Windows Welcome screen. This screen is where users are prompted to enter their credentials, such as a password or PIN, to access the system.

The other steps mentioned occur at different stages of the boot process:

• “WinLoad loads two files that make up the core of Windows: NTOSKRNL.EXE and HAL.DLL.” This step occurs earlier in the boot process, where the Windows Boot Loader (Winload.exe) loads the essential system files including the kernel (NTOSKRNL.EXE) and the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL.DLL).
• “WinLoad reads the registry files, chooses a hardware profile, and loads the device drivers.” This is also an earlier step, where Winload.exe sets up the system environment by reading the registry and loading necessary drivers.
• “Winload uses the path specified in BOOTMGR to find the boot partition.” This is one of the first steps in the boot process, where the Windows Boot Manager (BOOTMGR) identifies the boot partition and instructs Winload.exe to start loading Windows.