Windows Configuration Components

Introduction to windows configuration

• The main component within windows 9x  responsible for its configuration is the control panel. Windows provides you with a user-friendly environment for configuring and optimizing you system operation through Control Panel .

• There are tools for installing hardware and software , modifying your configuration and removing you hardware or software from the system.

 

Control Panel Hardware  Capabilities of windows 98 Hardware  Drivers Device Manager Plug and Play Manual installation  of devices

System Properties Hardware  Profile Virtual Memory Performance settings Installing Programs Removing Programs Adding Windows Components

 

Windows Control Panel

• The Control Panel  is the configuration center of your system where you can effectively configure and install all hardware and software  required by your system.

• Control Panel  is the safe method of configuration in windows 9x , the other method is directly changing the registry  which is a lot more risky.

 

Components of the Control Panel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Accessibility Options

• This option allows the user to extend their capabilities on the system to suit their personal needs. The accessibility option can be used by users with physical disabilities to enhance their experience on the computer.  Its features include keyboard  features, sound features, display features, mouse  features etc.

Add New Hardware

• The Add Remove Hardware  wizard is a comprehensive tool in Windows 9x which has undergone some improvements in windows98 over Windows 95.

• It can be used to perform several hardware configuration  related tasks such as:

• Activating Plug and Play  manually  if the device added where not recognized by Plug and Play during system startup

• Removing Devices from the system

• Updating Device Drivers

• Installing devices  Manually and overriding plug and play.

• In situations where Plug and Play  does not install the device at hand correctly, or the configuration of the system will be made different from the one that you require for a specialized function, you may override Plug and Play within Add Remove Hardware .

Add/Remove Programs

This tool can be used to add/remove programs , customize the windows environment by adding windows components, and finally create a startup  disk.

 

Installing Programs

• All programs  can be installed in windows by either double clicking on the setup icon of the application or by using the Add Remove Programs  icon

Removing Programs

• If an application is removed by simply deleting the application folder from the hard drive , it will have catastrophic implications on the operating system  and could result in your operating system failure.

• This is because application files  are dispersed in the operating system  folder and the application folder and deleting the application has only resulted in the partial removal of the application.

• In order to remove an application completely from your system you need to use Add Remove Programs .

Adding Windows Components

• When Windows is initially installed, it has within it all the components for standard use of windows 9x .

• It you need to customize your windows environment by adding or removing certain features of windows that are not installed in the standard installation  of windows you need to use the Add Remove Programs  feature of windows.

 

Exercise (Adding and Removing a program)

1.      Click on Start àSettings àControl Panel 2.      Click on the Add/Remove Programs properties window 3.      Select the window setup tab. 4.      Under the components part of the screen, move your scrollbar down until you see the system tools check box. 5.      Double click on the system tools icon. 6.      From the system tools window, check the Backup , System Monitor  and system resource checkboxes. 7.      Click on Ok at the bottom of the System tool Window. 8.      Click on Ok at the end of the Add Remove Programs  Properties Window 9.      You should see the system install the required components, the system may request the Windows 98 installation  CD

Making A Startup Disk

·        The startup  disk contains all the tools the user requires to recover  a windows environment. It has built in components such as boot files  CDROM  access components, disk recovery  files, drive recovery file, registry  recovery files etc.

Exercise (Making a startup  disk)

1.      Click on Start àSettingàControl Panel 2.      Double click on Add/Remove Program icon 3.      Click on the Startup disk  tab from the Add/Remove Programs Properties Window 4.      Click on the Create Disk button on the screen. The system will ask you to place the disk in to the system for file transfers.

 

Date/Time

·        You can use the Date/Time  icon to configure the system date and the current time and the time zone .

 

Display

·        The Display options  can be altered here by adding screen savers , changing your background, changing your appearance, adding web  effects, and finally changing the settings of your card.

 

Exercise (Configuring Desktop Settings  and a screen saver )

Click on startà settingsàControl panel Double click on the display icon Click on the Screen saver tab Under the screen saver section of the screen click on the downward arrow and choose the Mystify screen saver Use the up and down arrow heads to select the wait period of your choice Click on the OK button at the bottom of the screen.

 

Exercise (Converting to web  style display)

1.      Double click My Computer 2.      Double click on the C: Drive 3.      From the Menu options, select View and move your cursor to the folder options and click on it. 4.      From the General  tab of Folder options, select the Web Style  radio button and click on ok.

   

Exercise(Customizing Desktop Style )

Double click My Computer Double click on the C: Drive From the Menu options, select View and move your cursor to the folder options and click on it. From the General  Tab of Folder options, select Customizeàselect Settings   Then customize the settings for Active Desktop , Browse folder options, View web  content in folder, Click items as follows.

 

Folder Options

 

Fonts

You can setup the font setting, add new fonts to the system.

 

Game Controllers

You can setup the system joystick using this option.

 

Internet  Options

You can setup the browser  options and the email options. Within this option you can configure the connection options, setup the browser security, select the programs  for Internet  use, Control the incoming web  content. You can also setup some of the advanced features of the browser such as printing options.

 

Keyboard

With this option you can configure the keyboard  and change settings such as repeat rate, repeat delay and language .

 

Modems

Install and configure the system modem and dialing properties

 

Mouse

You can change the mouse  settings and drivers  here. These settings include left handed or right handed, selecting click speed, selecting the shape of the pointer, selecting the motion of the pointer.

 

Multimedia

You can configure the soundcard and CDROM  settings

 

Network

You can setup the network  card, network options, network protocol , client service, etc.

 

ODBC  Data Sources

This option allows us to configure drivers  to connect programs  with database environments. Usually used by programmers and web  developers.

 

Passwords

You can configure the user password  for that profile in this option. This option is best used with a server where authentication  is compulsory.

 

Power  Management

You can configure your Uninterrupted Power  Supply UPS  here. You can also setup certain power options such as hibernate and other power saving features.

 

Printers

You can install a printer and configure its printing options here.

 

Regional Settings

You can configure the language , currency, time, Date location and numbering on the system.

 

Sounds

You can associate sounds with actions such as opening files , deleting files and closing windows.

 

System Properties

• The System icon in the Control Panel  has four separate properties tabs:

• General  

• Device Manager .

• Hardware  Profile  

• Performance

General

• The General  option presents you with system information  such as operating system  version, processor type, and quantity of RAM .

Hardware  Profile

• Hardware  Profiles are applied to systems that change their hardware settings to known fixed different hardware settings.

• Say you used a modem to connect to the Internet  at home and a network  card at work on your notebook  system, you may decide to setup separate home and work profiles to avoid the system running plug and play every time your system restarts.

• When you have installed different profiles, your system will allow you to choose the profile you need to use at system startup .

 

Exercise (Adding a new Hardware  Profile )

Click on startàsettingsàcontrol panel Double click on the system icon From the system properties window select the hardware profile tab Under the hardware profiles windows click on the current profile and then click on the copy button Select the second profile and click on the rename button to change its name. You should now be able to view both of the profiles when the system is rebooted.

 

Introduction Device Manager  

• The Device Manager  is a component of System Properties  that can be accessed in different way within windows.

• Device Manager  offers you the ability of viewing and altering all your current devices  and there associated configuration settings.

 

Exercise (Viewing device configuration in device manager)

Click on startàsettingsàControl panel Double click on the system icon Click in the Device Manager  tab In order to view IRQ , DMA  and IO address  settings click on the properties button. click on the associated radio button to view the device configuration such as IRQ , IO address  and DMA .

 

 

Performance File Setting

• Within the performance  tab we have the file settings button which allows us to change and troubleshoot our systems storage devices  features including Hard drive, Floppy drive, CD  drive etc.

Performance Graphics Settings

• This button in the Performance tab allows us to change out graphics properties with respect to a graphics accelerator on your VGA  card.

Virtual Memory

• Swap  files  or Virtual Memory  is a spaces occupied by the operating system  from the hard drive  designated as virtual RAM .

• If your system runs out of physical memory , using swap files  means that your system does not halt but only slows down because it stores some of its data on the hard drive  emulating your RAM .

Telephony

• The telephony  option allows you to set the telephone options such as dialing number, your number etc.

Users

• You can define different user profiles  from within this option. These profiles contain desktop settings, user password , etc.

Installing Drivers

• A driver  can be thought of as a program designed for the operating system  to communicate with that particular hardware. A driver informs the operating system (OS) of the limitations of that device and allows the OS to communicate to the device with device specific commands rather than generic  commands.

• Within windows 9x  there two separate ways of updating your drivers ; the first is through Device Manager  in the System properties and the second is through Add Remove Hardware .

• You can update or change device drivers  directly in the Device Manager  of the Control Panel .

• The second method of updating or changing device drivers  is by using the Add Remove Hardware  wizard in Control Panel

 

Exercise (Installing Device drivers  in Device Manager )

Click on Start àSettings àControl panel Double click on the system icon Click on the Device Manager  tab Click on the plus sign for the device type of choice to update the driver  (e.g. modem) Choose the modem device that needs to have a driver  update by double clicking on it On the device properties window click on the driver  tab Click in the Update drivers  button and add the new driver  for the device.

Questions

 

1. What is a driver ?

1. Program that allows the operating system  to communicate with the hardware of interest.

2. A hardware that connect two devices  together

3. A person who drives a car

4. A software  that controls the display

2. What are the methods of changing a driver  in windows 98

1. Use the system icon in the control panel

2. Use the Add/remove programs  icon in the control panel

3. Use the Add new hardware icon in the control panel

4. Use System Information  in the system tools 

 

3. What are the methods of changing a network  card driver  in windows 98? (Choose all that apply)

1. Use the system icon in the control panel

2. Use the Add/remove programs  icon in the control panel

3. Use the Add new hardware icon in the control panel

4. Use System Information  in the system tools

5. Use the network  icon in the control panel

4. Where can you view the IRQ  setting of your hardware in windows 98? (Choose all that apply)

1. In the system information  of windows 98

2. In the Hardware  profiles

3. In the performance  setting

4. In the Device manager

5. In the Modem settings

5. Where can you view the IO address  setting of your modem in windows 98? (Choose all that apply)

1. In the system information  of windows 98

2. In the Hardware  profiles

3. In the performance  setting

4. In the Device manager

5. In the Modem settings

6. How can you customize your windows98 installed components

1. Use the system icon in the control panel

2. Use the Add/remove programs  icon in the control panel

3. Use the Add new hardware icon in the control panel

4. Use System Information  in the system tools

5. Use the network  icon in the control panel

 

Answers

1.      A

2.      C

3.      C,E

4.      A,D

5.      A,D,E

6.      B