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The equivalent of ExitProcess is RtlExitUserProcess. NtTerminateProcess is equal to TerminateProcess |
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Kernel mode device drivers for devices on buses such as [[Conventional PCI|PCI]] and [[PCI Express]] directly call routines in the HAL to access [[I/O ports]] and registers of their devices. The drivers use HAL routines because different platforms may require different implementations of these operations. The HAL implements the operations appropriately for each platform, so the same driver executable file can be used on all platforms using the same [[central-processing unit|CPU]] architecture, and the driver source file can be portable across all architectures.
On [[x86]] systems prior to [[Windows 8]], there are several different HAL files on the installation media. The Windows installation procedure determines which ones are appropriate for the current platform and copies it to the hard drive, renaming it to '''hal.dll''' if necessary. Among the criteria for this selection are: the presence of an [[Advanced Configuration and Power Interface|ACPI]]-compatible BIOS, the presence of an [[Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller|APIC]], and whether or not multiple processors are present and enabled. (The multiple cores of a [[multi-core CPU]], and even the "logical processors" implemented by a [[hyperthreading]] CPU, all count as "processors" for this purpose.) On [[x86-64]] and [[Itanium]] platforms there is just one possible '''hal.dll''' for each CPU architecture. On Windows 8 and later, the x86 version also only has one HAL.
HAL is merged (or statically linked) into ntoskrnl.exe<ref>{{cite tweet|number=1154442296391323651|user=PetrBenes|title=Did I miss something? Routines...|date=25 July 2019}}</ref> starting with version 2004 of Windows 10, and the dll only serves as a stub for backwards compatibility.
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