Windows

From Forensics Wiki

Windows is a widely-spread operating system from Microsoft.

Contents 1 Forensics 1.1 Filesystems 1.2 Features in Windows Vista 1.3 Features in Windows 7 1.4 Registry 1.5 Thumbs.db Files 1.6 Browser Cache 1.7 Browser History 2 Advanced Format (4KB Sector) Hard Drives 3 External Links

Forensics

Filesystems

FAT, NTFS

Features in Windows Vista

• BitLocker
• SuperFetch

Features in Windows 7

• BitLocker To Go
• Windows Shadow Volumes

Registry

The Windows Registry is a database of keys and values that provides a wealth of information to forensic investigators.

Thumbs.db Files

Thumbs.db files can be found on many Windows systems. They contain thumbnails of images or documents and can be of great value for the investigator.

See also: Vista thumbcache.

Browser Cache

Browser History

The Web Browser History files can contain significant information. On Windows this is Internet Explorer by default.

Advanced Format (4KB Sector) Hard Drives

Windows XP does not natively handle drives that use the new standard of 4KB sectors. For information on this, see Advanced Format.

External Links

• Wikipedia: Microsoft Windows