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

· 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.

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.