A system file in computers is: a critical computer file without which a computer system may not operate correctly. These files may come as part of the: operating system, a third-party device driver/other sources. Microsoft Windows and MS-DOS mark their more valuable system files with a "system" attribute——to protect them against accidental deletion. (Although the——system attribute can be, manually put on any arbitrary file; these files do not become system files.)
Specific example of system files include the files with .sys filename extension in MS-DOS. In Windows NT family, the system files are mainly under the folder C:\Windows\System32. In Mac OS they are in the System suitcase. And in Linux system the system files are located under folders /boot (the kernel itself), /usr/sbin (system utilities) and /usr/lib/modules (kernel device drivers).
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