Microsoft exam 70-290 guide

Part 2: Managing and Maintaining Physical & logicel drives
[2.1] Plug & play
For plug & play to operate we need the following:
Plug & play BIOS
OS that is plug & play capable
Device that supports plug & play
When Windows finds new hardware but is unable to install it we can go to Device Manager and run troubleshooter as well as look at the error codes
Uninstalling the device using 'Device manager' only removes the driver and uninstalls it from the OS (not from the PC!). If the device is not physically removed from the PC, it will be detected the next time PC boots up. To prevent this from happening one must disable the device.
When Windows 2003 fails to detect new hardware use 'Add new hardware wizard'
[2.2] Hardware supported
Virtual Disk service API for storage systems, SANs (storage area networks)
IEEE 1394, RAID, USB 2.0, Video, Sound
Wireless supports
Wireless and cable network bridging
Roaming and autoconfiguration
USB 2.0 supports up to 127 devices per root hub and up to 5 deep nested external hubs. You can see power & bandwith usage by checking out root properties.
Windows 2003 has the ability to burn CD-R and CD-RW using IMAPI service, however it is disabled by default
You will need a decoder for video DVDs (data DVDs are OK)
DVD+RW and DVD-RW are not supported, need manufacturer's driver
[2.3] Access needed to install new hardware
You will need to be a member of the Administrators group or have 'load and unload device drivers' user privelage to install new hardware, unless
Driver the the hardware uses is signed or has the Designed for Windows Logo
No further action is required to install the device, no requirement for Windows to display a user interface. No need to use 'Add Hardware Wizard'
Device driver is already on the system
No network policy settings are preventing you from installing hardware.
This way ordinary users can for example connect a USB pen drive to the PC without beeing member of the administrators group
[2.4] Device Manager can be accessed in 4 ways
By going to start -> all programs -> administrative tools -> computer managment-> device manager tree selection
Control panel -> system -> hardware tab -> device manager button
R-click on 'My computer' and select properties ->hardware tab -> device manager button
Custom made MMC snap-in
[2.5] Device Manager views
Devices by type - when you use this view all network adapters present will be listed under 'network adapters', all disk drives under 'disk drives' etc. This is the default view.
Devices by connection - you can for example see what devices are connected to the motherboard on the PCI slot by expanding Standard PC node and expanding PCI bus node.
Resources by type - sorts devices by type, i.e. DMA devices, I/O devices, IRQ devices and memory devices. Good for IRQ conflict troubleshooting.
Resources by connection - sorts devices by connection instead of type
Show hidden devices - shows the non plug and play devices that have been removed from the PC but have installed drivers.
[2.6] Device properties tab
General - for example manufacturer and device status
Advanced settings - optional, not every device has them. For example, for a network card we could have card link speed selector.
Resources tab - shows things like IRQ assignments. You can only edit IRQ if there is a conflict. Also the device has to be plug and play capable.
Power managment - not applicable to servers
Hardware profiles - good mostly for laptops, when say you have different hardware connected to your PC at the office and at home office. Also can be used for troubleshooting, you can limit the hardware in each profile.
[2.7] Driver properties
Details of installed driver
Update driver
Roll back driver (new in Windows 2003)
Uninistall driver
Driver signing:
Harmful driver install prevention
HCL - Hardware compatabilty list, to be replaced by Windows catalog
Run d:\i386\winnt32 /checkupgradeonly from Windows 2003 CD to check hardware compatability
Command line sigverif.exe is used to check drivers from command line
By default system is set to warn user if he or she is installing unsigned driver (other options are: ignore and block)
Unsigned driver means that the driver was not tested by Microsoft and is not supported by Microsoft. For most part these drivers are still OK
When driver is signed by Microsoft it and the hardware are tested by Microsoft
Some older devices (like CD-ROM etc.) plug into LPT port on the PC. You will need to set LPT port to "Legacy plug and play support" on port settings tab for older devices to work.
The easiest way to solve embedded device conflict with an add on device is to disable the onboard device. For example, to use add on music card, you will need to disable onboard music card
Many problems are caused by incorrect drivers, for example graphic card that displays only 800x600 resolution. Update driver to solve these problems.
[2.8] HAL - hardware abstraction layer
Computer driver which is the interface to BIOS, kernel is build on top of this driver
You can choose HAL during install by pressing F5
Multiple processors - when installing a 2nd processor in a single processor system (UP - uni processor) you will need to update HAL for the CPU from single CPU to multiple CPU (SMP - symmetric multi processor driver)
Do not upgrade from standard HAL to ACPI (advanced configuration and power interface) HAL and vice versa
[2.9] Windows update & automatic update
1st appeared in Windows 98
Windows 2003 adds scheduling of updates capability
To access follow: control panel -> system -> system properties -> automatic update button
Can set up Windows update properties via GP settings
Specify Intranet Microsoft Update service location
Configure automatic updates
Reschedule Automatic updates scheduled installations
No auto-restart for scheduled automatic updates
[2.10] Printers
Printer - this is how we call a piece of software on your PC
Print device - this is the actual hardware printer
Print server - PC to which a local printer is connected - any Windows PC. It is the computer that sends print jobs to the print device. For a network printer you send jobs to the server as well.
Print spooler - also referred to as print queue this is a directory on print server where jobs are being stored prior to being printed
Print processor - also known as rendering is the process that determines whatever a print job needs further processing once job has been sent to the spooler
Printer pool - configuration that allows to use one printer for multiple print devices
Print driver - piece of software that understands your print device codes
Physical port - port through which a printer is directly connected to the computer, COM or LPT
Logical port - port through which a printer with a network card is attached to network, much faster than a physical port
Local printer - printer that uses a physical port and has not been shared
Network printer - printer that is available to local and network users, can use either physical or logical port
Windows server 2003 can be in a "print server" role. In this role the server is set to manage network printers (this includes local printers connected to other PCs which are shared)
You can use UNIX (LPR) protocol, for this you will need to add LPR port. LPR is included in "print services" for UNIX, which is installed as a separate component of Windows Server 2003
You can also have print services for Macintosh and for Netware
Whenever you hear anything that deals with: LPR, LPD, LPQ think UNIX
You can load into your Windows 2003 server in "print server" role additional drivers for other Windows versions (Windows 95/98/NT4/2000/XP)
You can set printer priority (1-99) as well as printer avability (which means when the printer will be available timewise) to different user groups as well as access to the print device itself to different user groups and individual users.
For network printers that are attached using ethernet cable to the network and use TCP/IP for communication any Windows 2003 server can be a print server provided that it is connected to the same network
To implement above you need to create a new TCP/IP port
To create a port you will also need IP of the network printer or its share name (so IP can be pulled from active directory)
You can print from Windows XP clients to print server computers running a Windows 2003 by using a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). Internet printing uses Internet Printing Protocol (IPP).
For example to use different print priority for two groups you need to setup two print devices, restrict their use and set priority on them
If you want to know printer utilization track print queue object in system monitor
%systemdir%\system32\spool\printers\ is the default location of the spool folder. You should change it if your server serves many printers.
A port is defined as the interface that allows the PC to communicate with the print device. Local ports are for print devices attached to the PC directly.
Separator pages are used in multi user environments, sample files are found in %systemroot/system32/ folder with .sep ending
Print.exe - sends a text file to a printer
Net Print - displays information about a specified printer queue, displays information about a specified print job, or controls a specified print job