Hardware Management in Windows 7

Device Manager

Overview of device manager list of devices and status (example) driver details and upgrade (example)

Plug and Play and device drivers BIOS and OS see new device and assign resources,

install drivers If Windows does not have a driver: asks for disk/CD

Managing unsigned drivers use Sigverif.exe for a list of unsigned drivers search windows\system32\drivers directory what drivers are safe to install? See this help note.

System Restore

How it works System Restore consists of two parts, file

monitoring and restore point management. Restore points contains: snapshot of the

registry and certain dynamic system files. an unsigned driver causes a restore point. automatic updates causes a restore point. monitors program/system files and user data

(file types) if you set it do do so. you can turn on/off monitoring in specific

drives containing only data (example) More details in this MS article

Performance Management Using the performance monitor:

Using task manager for a quick summary

Special tools

Process Explorer: get it here. Blue screen viewer: get it here. Dog Mode: create a new file with the file name:

DogMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

Autoruns: get it here. WinDirStat: get it here. HWINFO32: get it here. CCleaner: get it here. Defraggler: get it here.

Web support Basic sites

Microsoft support: general, knowledge base, home PCs, Office, TechNet, Windows 7

Generic sites: Computing.net, Cnet, DriverGuide.com(members), Tom’s Hardware Guide

Linux support: Ubuntu, HOWTOs, Linux in Laptops, Linux System Admin Guide

Magazines PCWorld, PC Magazine, Cnet news, InfoWorld,

ComputerWorld, Slashdot, Linux Journal