Managing and Configuring of hardware devices and drivers

Managing and Configuring of hardware devices and drivers

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In Windows XP Professional, there are many tools to manage and monitor your hardware devices and drivers. You can add or remove your computer's hardware, and configure your computer settings.

Very often, Windows XP Professional automatically detects, installs, and
configures the new hardware devices plugged to it. For most devices to become Plug and Play compliant, the device driver for that device should be installed, and your computer BIOS should be of Plug and Play type. However, you might need to install some Plug and Play hardware. Non-Plug and Play hardware that Windows XP Professional does not identify can be installed with the Add Hardware Wizard. You simply need to go to Control Panel, click the Printers And Other Hardware window, and then click Add Hardware to start the Add Hardware Wizard.

Plug and Play feature is a combination of hardware and software support that enables a computer to recognize and adapt to the changes in hardware configuration without user intervention. The Plug and Play computer requires the interaction of the operating system, Basic Input/Output System (BIOS), devices, and device drivers.

Note: Windows 95/98/2000 operating systems support Plug and Play functionality. MS-DOS, Windows 3.11, Windows NT Server 4.0, and Windows NT Workstation 4.0 do not support Plug and Play functionality.



When you install a hardware device manually, you need to first determine which hardware resources are required. Device Manager provides a complete list of all hardware resources available on your computer.

Conflicts arise when two hardware devices require the same hardware resources. You then need to change the resource settings by using the Resource tab in the device's properties dialog box. Only the Administrators group has the privilege to change resource settings. Improper resource settings will stop a hardware device from working properly. Windows XP Professional automatically identifies Plug and Play devices, sorts out their resource requests, and assigns resources to meet their requirements.

Note: Computers upgraded to Windows XP Professional from Windows 2000 do not need the drivers to be installed separately. They work properly by using Windows 2000 drivers.

Logical Disk Manager Service

The Logical Disk Manager service is used to detect and monitor new hard disk drives. It sends the disk volume information to the Logical Disk Manager Administrative Service for configuration. This service watches Plug and Play events for the new drives that are detected, and passes volume and disk information to the Logical Disk Manager Administrative Service to be configured.



Device Drivers: Device drivers are programs used by hardware devices, attached to a computer, to communicate with the operating system. The operating system can communicate with the connected hardware devices only after installing their appropriate drivers. Device drivers are loaded automatically when a computer is started.

An incompatible driver causes problems. To disable the incompatible driver, you will have to go to Recovery Console and remove the driver for the SCSI device.

In Windows XP, 95, 98, and 2000, Device Manager keeps a list of all the hardware devices on your computer. It is the best tool to use for troubleshooting hardware problems.

To view and modify display or desktop property, you need to first click Appearance And Themes in Control Panel, and then click Display.



The Desktop Items dialog box allows you to include or exclude an icon from My Computer, My Documents, My Network places, and the Recycle Bin on your Desktop.

Hardware Profiles

Hardware profiles are sets of instructions that tell the Windows operating system which devices to start when a computer is started. It allows a user to decide the device driver that Windows should load at the time of booting.

Hardware profiles are useful for laptops. As most laptops are used at different locations, hardware profiles allow a user to change devices whenever he moves from one location to another.

By default, each device installed on the computer at the time of Windows installation is enabled in the Profile 1 hardware profile.



Taking the following steps can set hardware profiles:

• Double-click System in Control Panel.
• Click the Hardware tab.
• Click Hardware profiles.

Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL)

A Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) is an abstraction layer between the physical hardware of a computer and the software that runs on that computer. Its function is to hide differences in hardware; and, therefore, it provides a consistent platform to run applications on.

The Hardware Abstraction Layer, working closely with kernel, is software that hides and abstracts hardware differences from higher layers of the operating system. It filters different types of hardware. HAL is also used to allow a single device driver to support the same device on all platforms.

The Stop 0x79 message indicates that the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) and the kernel type for the computer do not match. The most likely cause of this error is a change in the ACPI firmware settings. To resolve the issue, you should restore the original settings used during Windows Professional Setup. To accomplish this, you should restart the computer by using a Windows XP Professional CD-ROM, and select the option to repair the installation.

Note: Operating systems having a defined HAL are easily portable across different hardware. This is especially important for embedded systems that run on dozens of different micro controllers.



Infrared Data Association (IrDA)

IrDA is an acronym for Infrared Data Association, a type of port installed on newer computers, printers, and other devices. IrDA port allows the devices to communicate without a wire connection. IrDA port transmits data at almost the same rate as a parallel port does. IrDA data transfer requires a clear line of sight between devices, and the communicating devices must be in close proximity. IrDA ports are found on many devices, including the following:

• PDAs, laptops, and handheld computers
• Printers
• Digital cameras
• Media centers

Connecting Your Old Computers To New Computers: The best way to connect your old computer to a new computer is a direct cable connection. For this, you need a COM port (serial port) and a null modem cable.

You cannot use parallel cables in direct cable connections. The null modem cable must be serial. COM ports vary from computer to computer; basically, old computers have 25-pin COM ports, and new computers often use 9-pin COM ports. So make sure what type of COM port your computer is using.



To connect your computers in a network, you must have network interface card (NIC) or a universal serial bus (USB) network interface installed in both the computers and a network cable to connect the two computers. You can use the Network Setup Wizard to set up your network when you are using cables and a hub to set up your network.

The Files and Setting Transfer Wizard displays the Select the Transfer Method page, which has the following three options:

• Direct Cable: A cable that connects your computer's serial ports.
• Floppy Drive or Other Removable Media: Both computers must have the same drive.
• Other: You can save files and settings to any disk drive or folder on your computer.

Universal Serial Bus (USB)

USB is a high-speed bus standard developed by Compaq, IBM, DEC, Intel, Microsoft, NEC, and Northern Telecom. It provides the Plug and Play capability of Windows to external hardware devices. USB supports hot plugging, i.e., a USB device can be installed or removed while the computer is running. A single USB port can be used to connect up to 127 peripheral devices, such as CD-ROM drives, tape drives, keyboards, scanners, etc. It has the data transfer rate of 12 Mbps.

Device Manager: Device Manager is a tool that can be used to manage the devices on a computer. Using Device Manager, users can view and change device properties, update device drivers, configure device settings, and uninstall a device. Device Manager is organized in a tree format with the top branches representing device categories. Users can use Device Manager to identify port resource conflicts. Device Manager can also be used to enable or disable a device.

To use Device Manager to remove a device from your computer, you need to highlight the device, and then click the Remove button at the bottom of the window or the Remove icon at the top of the window (which looks like a computer with a red X over it).

Note: Only advanced users should attempt to remove a device from Device Manager, and the removal may require administrative privileges.

Function of the Roll Back Driver feature of Device Manager in Windows XP Professional

The Roll Back Driver feature of Device Manager replaces a device driver with its previously installed version. This new feature of Windows XP allows you to roll back the driver to its original position when a new device driver installed on a computer makes it unstable. When you update a driver, a copy of the previous driver is automatically saved into the computer directory on your hard drive. Whenever you run into trouble, Windows can easily restore the previous working driver.

To use this feature, take the following three steps:

• Start Device Manager.
• Double-click the device for which the roll back is required.
• Click the Driver tab > Roll Back Driver button.

Sometimes you might face display issues while running the AcApp application because the application is configured to use 256 colors. By selecting the Run in 256 colors option in the Compatibility tab of the AcApp application property, the computer will adjust the color quality setting to 256 colors while this application is running. The default color settings will be restored when you close the application.

Device Manager, the tool you found very helpful for you to monitor, configure, and troubleshoot many devices attached to your computer, can also be used to upgrade the devices on your computer. Whenever a newer version of the driver is released, you can update the drivers.

Driver Signing: Driver signing is a Windows feature to help you enhance driver quality. It notifies the users if a driver has passed all Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) tests. Microsoft digitally signs the Windows XP Professional drivers and operating system files when it is ensured about the quality. Driver signing allows for the following three responses:

• Warn: This warns the user that the driver has not been signed and asks him whether or not to install it.
• Block: This prevents all unsigned drivers from being installed.
• Ignore: This allows all drivers to be installed, even if they have not been signed.

Enabling Apply settings as system default will apply the driver-signing configuration for the user who logs on to the computer.

The default mode setting is Warn mode. Signature verification options can be set by clicking the Driver Signing button under the Hardware tab of the System applet in Control Panel.

SIGVERIF.EXE is a command-line utility used for signature verification. It creates a log file, listing all the unsigned drivers installed on your computer. Administrators can use this utility to identify unsigned drivers on a Windows-based computer.

To identify the unsigned drivers installed on your Windows XP Professional computer, you will have to run SIGVERIF.EXE from the Start menu to identify the unsigned drivers installed on your Windows XP computer.

Last known Good Configuration: The Last Known Good Configuration is a copy of the computer state stored when a user last successfully logged on. This configuration is stored in the HKLMSystemCurrentControlSet registry key. The Last Known Good Configuration is the quickest way to resolve the issues caused by faulty drivers.

Note: The changes in computer settings made after the last successful startup are lost if an operating system is restored using the Last Known Good Configuration option.

Function of the Last Known Good Configuration startup option in Windows NT/2000/2003:

The Last Known Good Configuration startup option is used to start Windows if you are having trouble booting Windows NT/2000/2003 computer after installing a new driver or after changing a driver configuration. The Last Known Good Configuration startup option restores the configuration of the last successful booting of the computer, so that the computer is restored to its previous state, i.e., as it was before you made the changes. All configuration changes made since your computer was last successfully started are lost.

The Last Known Good Configuration is used to restore the computer to the state, stored in the registry, when a user last successfully logged on. Using this option, you will be able to boot and restore the original network adapter driver without affecting data on the computer.

Recovery from disk drive failure in a mirror set

If the mirror set is created on the disk drive that contains only data, you need to take the following steps to recover from disk drive failure:

• Break the mirror set by using the Disk Administrator utility and delete the failed partition.
• Replace the failed disk drive with a new disk drive.
• Establish a new mirror set on free disk space of the new disk drive by using the Disk Administrator utility.

If the mirror set is created on the disk drive that contains system and boot partition, you should take the following steps to recover from disk drive failure:

• If the secondary (shadow) disk drive fails, the recovery procedure is the same as that for the disk drive that contains only data.
• If the primary disk drive fails, you should take the following steps to recover from disk drive failure:



1. Edit the BOOT.INI file in the NT boot diskette, and change the ARC path to locate the secondary disk drive.
2. Boot with the NT boot diskette.
3. Break the mirror set by using the Disk Administrator utility, and delete the failed partition.
4. Copy the edited BOOT.INI file from the NT boot diskette to the system partition.
5. Replace the failed disk drive with a new disk drive.
6. Establish a new mirror set on free disk space of the new disk drive by using the Disk Administrator utility.

Emergency Repair Disk (ERD) is a floppy disk that contains critical system files necessary to recover a Windows NT computer in case of failure. These files are stored in compressed format. ERD includes a portion of the registry, computer's default profile (NTUSER.DAT), and computer's configuration files (SETUP.LOG, AUTOEXEC.BAT, and CONFIG.SYS).

ERD can be created through the RDISK.EXE utility. To start RDISK, go to the Start menu > Run and type RDISK, and click the OK button. ERD is not self bootable. To restore the information from ERD, you need to boot with NT Setup diskettes and select the Repair option and insert ERD to restore the information.

Task Manager: Task Manager is a monitoring tool provided in Windows 2000. It provides information about the programs and processes running on your computer and is used for an immediate overview of computer activity and performance. You can start Task Manager in any of the following three ways:

1. Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc
2. Right-click the Windows taskbar, and then click Task Manager
3. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del

You can select a program shown in the Task Manager dialog box to stop it from running, to switch to another program running concurrently in background, and to start a program (New task).

Task Manager is a utility that is used for managing applications, processes, and general computer performance, and also for viewing the networking and user statistics. The Task Manager utility is used to run or end programs or applications. Administrators use this tool to quickly identify and terminate a rogue application.

Invoking the Windows Security menu by using the Ctrl+Alt+Del key combination and then clicking the Task Manager button, or by right-clicking the task bar and then clicking the Task Manager menu option can run this utility.

Disk Management: Disk Management is a snap-in that is included in the Microsoft Management Console supplied with Windows XP. It is a tool used to manage computer disks, such as creating and deleting partitions and volumes and formatting them with FAT, FAT32 or NTFS file system, both on local and remote computers. In addition to this, you can do some other disk management tasks that you might need to perform, such as adding and removing hard disks and changing the storage type.

The Disk Management tool is used to create partitions and format new disks.

Take the following steps to create partitions and format disks:

Go to the Start menu > Programs > Administrative Tools > Computer Management.

In the console tree under Storage, click on Disk Management, go to the Action menu and click Rescan Disks. After taking these steps, you can create partitions and format new disks.

Note: If Disk Management does not detect a new disk after Rescan Disks, you may have to restart your computer.

Managing Disk on a Remote Computer: In a workgroup environment, you can manage disks on a remote computer that is running Windows XP Professional if you have the same account with the same password. In a domain environment, members of the Administrators group or the Server operators group can manage disks on remote computers.

Adding Disk: When you install a new disk in a computer having Windows XP Professional, it is added as basic storage. Here, the Disk Management tool helps you greatly and deletes the new disk installed, after you run Rescan Disks. If Disk Management does not detect the new disk installed after running Rescan Disk, you must restart the computer.

When you run Rescan Disk on the Action menu of the Disk Management snap-in, it updates information on Removable media, CD-ROM drives, basic volumes, file systems, and drive letters. You can also use the Refresh command to update the hardware information.

You have to perform all the necessary tasks when you are setting up a new hard disk or the remaining free space on a hard disk. First, you need to initialize the disk with either of the two storage types: Basic Storage and Dynamic Storage. Then create partition, and format it with FAT, FAT32, or NTFS.

Basic Storage: A basic disk is a type of physical disk that can be accessed by MS-DOS and all Windows-based operating systems. A basic disk can contain primary partitions, extended partitions, and logical drives. A disk initialized for basic storage is called a basic device. Basic storage is default for Windows XP Professional. A basic disk contains up to four primary partitions, or three primary partitions and an extended partition with multiple logical drives. To create partitions on a basic disk, which span multiple disks, the basic disk must be converted to a dynamic disk by using Disk Management or the DISKPART.EXE command-line tool.

Basic Volume: Basic volume is a partition on the basic disk. Basic volumes include primary partitions, extended partitions, and logical drives, as well as spanned, mirrored, striped, or RAID-5 volumes created using Windows NT 4.0 or earlier.

Dynamic Storage: A dynamic disk is a physical disk, which supports volumes that span multiple disks such as striped volume, RAID-5 volume, etc. A dynamic disk uses a hidden database to track information about dynamic volumes on the disk and other dynamic disks in the computer. Basic disks can be converted to dynamic disks by using Disk Management or the DISKPART command-line utility. When a basic disk is converted to a dynamic disk, all existing basic volumes become dynamic volumes.

Note: You must remove all volumes from the dynamic disk before you are converting it to a basic disk.

Volume set: Volume set is a disk configuration through which multiple areas of free space on one or more hard disks can be combined into a single logical disk.

A volume set can comprise the following spaces:

• Free space on multiple disks.
• Multiple areas of free space on one disk.
• Multiple areas of free space on multiple disks.

The Disk Administrator is used to create and extend volume sets. Dynamic disks are divided into volumes that can include portions of one or many disks. Following are the types of volumes according to disk space and performance:

Simple Volume: A simple volume contains disk space from a single disk. You can format it with any of the file systems such as FAT, FAT32, or NTFS; but to extend a simple volume space and to include unallocated space on a single disk, you need to format with NTFS.

Spanned Volume: A spanned volume is made up of disk space on more than one physical disk. It is used to combine the free spaces on different hard disk drives installed in a computer in order to create a large logical volume. It can be created only on dynamic disks. It supports two to thirty-two disk drives. You can extend existing spanned volumes formatted with NTFS by adding free spaces. A spanned volume is not fault tolerant and cannot be mirrored or striped. In Windows 2000/2003, users can combine SCSI and IDE hard disk drives by using a spanned volume.

Striped Volume: Striped volume is a volume that stores data in stripes on two or more physical disks. Data is evenly written across all the physical disks in 64KB units. Striped volumes do not provide fault tolerance but offer the best performance as compared to the other volumes available in Windows 2000.

Note: You can create striped volumes only on dynamic disks. Striped volumes cannot be mirrored or extended.

The additional tools in Windows XP Professional make deployment of the operating system easier. Using these tools, you can move your old settings to your new computer. Some of additional tools are the File and Transfer Wizard, the Disk management snap-in and Windows Installer, and the .msi package file format.

Windows Installer feature: Windows Installer and .msi package file format simplify the software installation. If due to any reason, the installation fails, Windows Installer rolls back your operating system to its original position. It prevents the DLL from overwriting by another application, when two applications are simultaneously using it. In this way, it allows only essential files to install, required to run the application. Windows Installer uses the information stored in the package file to install the application. The Windows Installer feature is used for reliable and resilient software installation and removal. It performs the following tasks:

• Restores the original state of a computer upon installation failure.
• Helps prevent certain forms of inter-application conflicts.
• Reliably removes existing programs.
• Diagnoses and repairs corrupted applications.
• Supports on-demand installation of application features.
• Supports unattended application installation.

Although this feature is basically used in a domain environment, you can configure Windows Installer Group Policy for computers in the workgroup environment.

Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI)

Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) is an open industry specification that defines power management for various types of computers and peripherals. ACPI evolves the existing collection of power management BIOS code, Advanced Power Management (APM) application programming interfaces (APIs), PNPBIOS APIs, Multiprocessor Specification (MPS) tables and so on into a well-defined power management and configuration interface specification.

Troubleshooting hardware devices and drivers:

Device Manager is one of the tools that help you disable, uninstall, and update device drivers.

1. If you have a fax device in your computer, you can use the Fax icon to add, monitor, and troubleshoot fax devices. Windows XP Professional provides the Fax Console to help you manage and troubleshoot faxes.
2. Most of the imaging devices are plug and play devices, and Windows XP Professional detects them and starts installation automatically. In case your computer is unable to install them or does not support them, you should use the Scanner And Camera Installation Wizard.
3. You can configure and change your mouse setting from Control Panel. You can set it according to right-handed or left-handed person and can adjust its speed.
4. When you need to install a new modem for your computer, click the Add button in the Modem tab. You can change the configuration by going to its properties. You can get additional help in troubleshooting the Modem by clicking the General tab.
5. If Game Controller is not attached properly and is not listed, first make sure that USB is enabled in the BIOS.
6. From Control Panel, you can configure the character repeat delay and the character repeat rate for your keyboard setting.
7. Windows XP Professional provides you the System File Checker (SFC), a command line tool to check the digital signature of files.
8. The computer is considered to be extremely busy when the Processor object's % Processor Time steadily averages 85 percent. This deteriorates the performance of the computer. To improve performance, you will have to either install another CPU or replace the existing CPU with a faster one.

Now, at the end of this article, I hope you will be able to manage and configure your computer hardware devices and drivers. In the next article, you will learn how to troubleshoot issues of hardware devices and drivers.

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