Device Manager

Device Manager is an excellent tool and should become your friend for installing and troubleshooting devices on your Windows server. Device Manager is accessible through the Computer Management MMC or the Hardware tab on the System applet in the Control Panel. You can also add Device Manager as a separate snap-in to a custom MMC. NOTE The Microsoft Management Console (MMC) is the framework introduced in Windows 2000 for all support tools. All of the Administrative Tools located on the Start menu are preconfigured MMCs. Custom MMCs can also be created by typing mmc from a run command and then adding snap-ins to the MMC. Device Manager can show you devices by type, devices by connection, resources by type, resources by connection, and your hidden devices. Each view enables you to troubleshoot devices in a different manner, as described here: • Devices by Type Displays a list of all devices on the computer by type of device. All the network adapters present on the machine will be listed under network adapters, all disk drives are listed under disk drives, and so on. Using this view, it is easy to determine if a particular device is working or not. This is the default view and the view that you will use most often. • Devices by Connection Displays all devices and how they are connected. To see what devices are connected to the motherboard on the PCI slot, for example, you would expand the Standard PC node and expand the PCI bus node. • Resources by Type Displays the status of allocated resources by type of device. When you view resources by type, you are able to see Direct Memory Access (DMA) devices, input/output (I/O) devices, interrupt request (IRQ) devices, and memory devices. This is the view to use if you need to troubleshoot an IRQ conflict. • Resources by Connection Displays the status of allocated resources by connection rather than by type. • Show Hidden Devices Displays all non-plug-and-play devices, and devices that have been removed from the computer but still have drivers installed. Updating Drivers Using Device Manager Probably the most common task you use Device Manager for is to update drivers. If you view resources by type, you are able to see a list of all devices in the computer. When you right-click the device, you will see the following options: • Update Driver Allows you to quickly update the device driver. • Disable Disables the current device without uninstalling it from the system. A disabled device is not usable, but is still installed. • Uninstall Uninstalls the device driver only. If the device is not physically removed, it will be automatically installed at next boot or hardware scan. • Scan for Hardware Changes Scans the system for any hardware changes and installs any new hardware automatically. • Properties Opens the Properties dialog box for the device. Note: The easiest way to solve device conflicts between an onboard or embedded device and a PCI device is to disable the onboard or imbedded device by using Device Manager. You may see a scenario on the exam where a new sound card is installed that is conflicting with the onboard sound card. You want to use the new sound card exclusively, but unless you are really good with a soldering iron, you won’t be able to remove the onboard sound card. Uninstalling the old sound card from Device Manager won’t work because the next time the computer is restarted or the hardware is scanned, the device will be found present and will be reinstalled. Simply disable the onboard device to solve your problem. Managing Device Properties It is important, both on the exam and in the real world that you understand and are familiar with managing devices. When you open a device’s properties sheet, you will see tabs for different properties. Figure 1-9 shows the properties for an Intel network card. The properties available will vary according to the device. The most common properties sheets are • General Properties • Advanced Settings • Driver Properties • Resources • Power Management Each of these was designed to provide specific information and to perform administrative tasks. We will look at some of these in the following sections. General Properties The General tab displays general information about the particular device and the manufacturer. The General tab also has a Device Status window that displays whether the device is working properly or not. If the device is not working properly, you can click the Troubleshooting button to access Help topics related to the device and access a wizard that will assist you in identifying the problem. For example, if you are troubleshooting a monitor, clicking the Trouble-shooter button opens the Help topics associated with video and monitor problems and asks you a series of questions about the problem. Most of the time if a device is not working properly, it is due to an incorrect or corrupt driver, and reinstalling a working driver fixes the problem. You can reinstall or update the driver on the Driver tab. Note: You will probably see a question or two involving devices with incorrect drivers and how to fix them. A video card with an incorrect driver may only display in 800x600, for example. To correct this problem and allow for higher resolutions, update the driver. You may be able to update the driver from the manufacturer’s CD or from an updated Windows driver list, or you may have to download a new driver from the manufacturer’s web site. Advanced Settings The Advanced tab allows you to set different properties of the device. The Advanced tab allows a great deal of control over the device and includes all of the customizable options of the device. The properties that can be altered will vary depending on the device you have selected. For example, you can alter the link speed and duplex mode of a network card, the SSID of a wireless card, extra initialization commands for a modem, or regional settings on a DVD drive. Not all devices have Advanced settings. On some servers, for example, none of the disk drives have Advanced settings. The same goes for some keyboards and video cards. Driver Properties This is the important one! You must know this dialog box for the exam. On the Driver tab, you are able to view details of the installed driver, update the driver, roll back the driver (new in Server 2003), and uninstall the driver completely. The Driver Details button shows you the version of the installed driver, whether the driver is digitally signed or not, and the exact location and file name of the driver. You can use this information for troubleshooting. Updating drivers is simple in Server 2003. By clicking the Update Driver button, Windows launches the Hardware Upgrade Wizard and will locate a new driver for your device. If the driver you update to doesn’t work, you can always roll it back to the previous driver by clicking the Roll Back Driver button. When you click this button, Windows will show you all the drivers that have been previously installed and allow you to choose a driver to roll back to. This functionality first appeared in XP Professional and has been implemented in Server 2003. Finally, you can uninstall the driver. Uninstalling the driver does not remove the device. You can uninstall the driver if you have been having trouble with the driver and would like to reinstall the device completely. Uninstall the driver, restart the machine, and then reinstall the driver at bootup. Remember, uninstalling the driver does not remove the device. So if you uninstall the driver without removing the device, the driver will be reinstalled the next time you boot the computer or scan for new hardware. Note: The ability to roll back to a previous driver is new, and Microsoft tends to test on new features. The simplest way to fix a recently upgraded device that is causing problems is to roll back the driver. Resources The Resources tab allows you to troubleshoot interrupt request (IRQ) conflicts. By default, you can’t change IRQs if there isn’t a conflict. The option will appear grayed out. Also, you can only change IRQs for plug-and-play devices. You can only change the IRQs of non- plug-and-play devices in the CMOS. Power Management The Power Management tab allows you to specify whether the device can be powered off to save battery life or to bring the computer out of standby. Power Management settings are not applicable to servers.