Microsoft has included a number of tools with each iteration of Windows to simplify system administration. While some tools have very specific purposes and are used only on rare occasions, you will come to rely on a number of them and access them on a regular basis. It is this latter set that we will examine in the following sections.
Task Manager lets you shut down nonresponsive applications selectively in all Windows versions. In current versions of Windows, it can do so much more, allowing you to see which processes and applications are using the most system resources, view network usage, see connected users, and so on. To display Task Manager, press Ctrl+Alt+Delete and click the Task Manager button (in earlier Windows versions, you only needed to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete). In Windows XP, whether the Security screen appears depends on whether you’re using the Windows XP Welcome screen (you can change this setting on the Screen Saver tab of the computer’s Display Properties dialog box). By default, in Windows 7, Vista, and XP, the Windows Security screen does not display if you press Ctrl+Alt+Del (unless it is a member of a domain); instead, Task Manager opens right away or you are given a set of tasks, among them Start Task Manager.
You can also right-click on an empty spot in the Taskbar and choose it from the pop-up menu that appears.
Task Manager has at least five tabs: Applications, Processes, Performance, Networking, and Users. A sixth tab, Services, appears in Windows 7 and Windows Vista.
The Networking tab is shown only if your system has a network card installed (it is rare to find one that doesn’t). The Users tab is displayed only if the computer you are working on is a member of a workgroup or is a stand-alone computer. The Users tab is unavailable on some computers that are members of a network domain (depending on the OS and the configuration). Let’s look at these tabs, in the order of their appearance, in more detail:
Use Task Manager whenever the system seems bogged down by an unresponsive application.
Microsoft created the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) interface as a front end in which you can run administrative tools. Many administrators don’t even know that applications they use regularly run within an MMC.
Windows includes a piece of software to manage computer settings: the Computer Management Console. The Computer Management Console can manage more than just the installed hardware devices; the Computer Management Console can manage all the services running on a computer, in addition to a Device Manager that functions almost identically to the one that has existed since Windows 9x. It contains an Event Viewer to show any system errors and events as well as methods to configure the software components of all the computer’s hardware.
To access the Computer Management Console, you can go through Administrative Tools in Control Panel or just right-click the Computer/My Computer icon and choosing Manage.
After you are in Computer Management, you will see all of the tools available. This is one power-packed interface, which includes the following system tools:
Figure 13-13: Event Viewer’s opening screen
Computer Management also has the Storage area, which lets you manage removable media, defragment your hard drives, or manage partitions through the Disk Management utility. Finally, you can manage system services and applications through Computer Management as well.
Administrative shares are created on servers running Windows on the network for administrative purposes. These shares can differ slightly based on which OS is running, but end with a dollar sign ($) to make them hidden. There is one for each volume on a hard drive (C$, D$, etc.) as well as admin$ (the root folder – usually C:WINDOWS), and print$ (where the print drivers are located). These are created for use by administrators and usually require administrator privileges to access.
Local shares, as the name implies, are those that are created locally and are visible with the icon of a hand beneath them.
This tool (SERVICES.MSC) is an MMC snap-in that allows you to interact with the services running on the computer. Select Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools and choose Services and you will see those configured on the system. The status of the services will typically either be started or stopped, and you can right-click and make a choice from the context menu: Start, Stop, Pause, Resume, Restart. Services can be started automatically or manually or be disabled. If you right-click a service and choose Properties from the menu, you can choose the startup type as well as see the path to the executable and any dependencies.
Performance Monitor differs a bit in different versions of Windows, but it has the same purpose throughout: to display performance counters. While lumped under one heading, two tools are available—System Monitor and Performance Logs And Alerts. The System Monitor will show the performance counters in graphical format. The Performance Logs And Alerts utility will collect the counter information and then send that information to a console or event log.
Performance Monitor’s objects and counters are very specific; you can use Performance Monitor as a general troubleshooting tool as well as a security troubleshooting tool. For instance, you can see where resources are being utilized and where the activity is coming from. In Exercise 13.9, you will see how to work with Performance Monitor.
Accessible either beneath Computer Management or via Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools, the Task Scheduler (Scheduled Tasks in Windows XP) allows you to configure an application to run automatically or at any regular interval (see Figure 13-14). There are a number of terms used to describe the options for configuring tasks: action (what the task actually does), condition (an optional requirement that must be met before a task runs), setting (any property that affects the behavior of a task), and trigger (the required condition for the task to run).
For example, you could configure a report to automatically run (action) every Tuesday (trigger) when the system has been idle for 10 minutes (condition), and only when requested (setting). Figure 13-15 shows the dialog boxes used to configure the task.
Figure 13-14: Windows Task Scheduler in Windows Vista
Figure 13-15: Task configuration dialog boxes in Windows Vista
The Msconfig system configuration tool differs a bit in the tabs that it has based on the Windows version you are running, but the key ones are General, Boot, Services, Startup, and Tools. In Windows XP, Boot is actually Boot.ini, and this tab lets you modify the BOOT.INI file and also specify other boot options. On the Services tab, you can view the services installed on the system and their current status (running or stopped). You can also enable and disable services as necessary.
The Msinfo32 tool, shown in Figure 13-16, displays a fairly thorough list of settings on the machine. You cannot change any values from here, but you can search, export, save, and run a number of utilities (accessed through the Tools menu option). There are a number of command-line options that can be used when starting Msinfo32, and Table 13-11 summarizes them; with the exception of three that are available in Windows 7 and Vista as well, most are available only in Windows XP.
Table 13-11: Msinfo32 command-line options
Option | Function |
/category (available only in Windows XP) | Specifies a category to be selected when the utility starts |
/computer | Allows you to specify a remote computer to run the utility on |
/nfo | Creates a file and saves it in .NFO format |
/pch (available only in Windows XP) | Displays the history view |
/report | Creates a file and saves it in .TXT format |
/showcategories (available only in Windows XP) | Shows category IDs instead of friendly names |
/? (available only in Windows XP) | Shows the command-line options available for use with the utility |
Figure 13-16: The Msinfo32 interface shows configuration values for the system.
Another utility to know is the DxDiag (DirectX Diagnostic) tool, shown in Figure 13-17. This tool (which can be summoned alone or from the Tools menu of Msinfo32) allows you to test DirectX functionality. When you start it, you can also verify that your drivers have been signed by Microsoft, as shown in Figure 13-18. DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) related to multimedia.
Finally, MSTSC (Remote Desktop Connection) is used to configure remote desktop connections. It offers a glut of options, as shown in Figure 13-19.
Figure 13-17: The DxDiag tool lets you test functionality with DirectX components.
Figure 13-18: Verification that drivers have been signed
The Advanced Configuration Power Interface (ACPI) must be supported by the system BIOS in order to work properly. With ACPI, it is the BIOS that provides the operating system with the necessary methods for controlling the hardware. This is in contrast to Advanced Power Management (APM), which only gave a limited amount of power to the operating system and let the BIOS do all the real work. Because of this, it is not uncommon to find legacy systems that can support APM but not ACPI.
There are three main states of power management common in most operating systems:
Figure 13-19: Options for MSTSC
If you are interested in saving power with a system that is not accessed often, one option is to employ Wake on LAN (WoL). Wake on LAN is an Ethernet standard implemented via a card that allows a “sleeping” machine to awaken when it receives a wakeup signal. Wake on LAN cards have more problems than standard network cards. In our opinion, this is because they’re always on. In some cases, you’ll be unable to get the card working again unless you unplug the PC’s power supply and reset the card.
Windows offers quite a range of choices from the Shut Down (non–Windows XP/Vista) or Turn Off Computer (Windows XP and Vista) command under the Start menu (in Vista, it appears as an icon of an on/off button and does not have a label). Note that with a configuration called Fast User Switching, Windows XP also displays Shut Down rather than Turn Off Computer. When you select this option, Windows presents you with several choices. Exactly which options are available depends on the Windows version you are running.
The possible choices are as follows:
Sleep timers allow you to configure a system to sleep for certain periods of time to conserve power. While not included with the operating system, a number of downloadable programs can be found that will turn the machine off at a certain time or after some specified condition is met.
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