Robin Burden answered
Any program or operating system can be considered 'stand-alone' if it doesn't rely on a library, external module, or another operating system to boot.
What does a stand-alone operating system mean?
The term 'stand-alone operating system' isn't very common any more, because most operating systems are considered stand-alone these days.
However, when Microsoft released early versions of Windows (think 3.1 or 95), the operating system was actually based on MS-DOS (MicroSoft Disk Operating System) running in the background, with the Windows OS working as a sort of user interface.
In this set-up, the Windows OS wouldn't be considered stand-alone, because it required MS DOS to be running before it could be initiated.
The following can all be considered basic criteria for a stand-alone system:
What does a stand-alone operating system mean?
The term 'stand-alone operating system' isn't very common any more, because most operating systems are considered stand-alone these days.
However, when Microsoft released early versions of Windows (think 3.1 or 95), the operating system was actually based on MS-DOS (MicroSoft Disk Operating System) running in the background, with the Windows OS working as a sort of user interface.
In this set-up, the Windows OS wouldn't be considered stand-alone, because it required MS DOS to be running before it could be initiated.
The following can all be considered basic criteria for a stand-alone system:
- Never exits
- Loading into memory
- Begins its own execution
- Never fully hands over execution
