Keep a printout of the Device Manager Report handy for Emergencies. The Device Manager shows you what makes your computer tick. There you'll find name, settings, and driver file details for every device and piece of hardware on your system. (modem, keyboard, monitor, CD-ROM, mouse, etc.)
This report can be a handy reference when talking to a technical support professional, upgrading your system, or troubleshooting resource conflicts among devices.
In XP: Start, Control Panel (classic view), System, Hardware, Device Manager.
In Vista: Start, Control Panel (classic view), Device Manager.
Device Manager Tab shows:
All of your Hardware, CD-ROM, Disk Drives,
Keyboard, Modem, Mouse, Ports, etc.
An X through the device's icon means the device has been disabled.
A circled yellow exclamation point (!) through the device's icon means the device has a problem.
The type of problem will be displayed in the Properties dialog box.
Want a hard copy report of everything installed on your system? In the Device Manager, with Computer highlighted click the print button.
Under Report Type, select either of the following:
System Summary to print a report of which hardware is currently using which system resource (IRQ, RAM, and so on)
All Devices and System Summary to print a report on EVERY device connected to and/or installed on the computer
Click OK.
Only drawback here: The report MAY look like so much Greek to you, but try to slug through it. It is good information to have.
ADVANCED SETTINGS ARE:
File System - Graphics - Virtual Memory
If a piece of hardware has a circled yellow exclamation point (!) or an X through the device’s icon: Click on the + sign and then Right Click on the actual name of the device and a screen will come up that will let you update the driver, disable, uninstall, then click on Properties and you have a Troubleshoot Option. ==========================================
In Windows XP: To open Performance, click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel. click Administrative Tools, and then click Performance
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