In the Windows family of OSs, control over the properties of the hardware of a computer is carried out using a system utility such as device manager. In other words, this is the interface directly between the user and the hardware. Using it, the following features are available:
- View installed hardware on a computer.
- Timely detection of malfunctioning equipment and the elimination of device conflicts.
- Editing configuration parameters for a single device.
- View information about installed device drivers, as well as the ability to directly download driver updates from the Internet or a computer.
- Rollback device software to a previous version.
- Enable, disable, and delete devices through appropriate interactions with their drivers.
The possibilities offered by this program can be used both by a novice (find out the model of a device, update drivers), and by an advanced user (advanced troubleshooting and equipment conflicts).
Next, consider how we can open this utility on your operating system. XP device manager can be found as follows:
- Go to the Start menu.
- Open the "Control Panel".
- Point "System".
- In the "Hardware" tab, you will see the "Device Manager" button.
Windows 7 Device Manager has the following location:
- Click "Start" again.
- If there is a “Computer” item in the menu, right-click on it and in the menu that appears, find what you were looking for.
- In another case, go to the "Control Panel".
- In the upper right corner of the "View" menu, select the checkbox next to "Large (small) icons."
- In the formed list you can find the dispatcher.
Also, in any of the Windows OS, the device manager can also be opened using the command line. To do this, go to the "Start" and find there "Run."
A dialog box appears with a line in which enter the line "devmgmt.msc" and press the enter key. That's all.
It is worth paying attention to the fact that your account must have administrator rights to make any changes to the device settings. However, any user can enter the device manager.
And now a few words about the program interface. Initially, you will see a list of devices on the computer. By clicking on the plus sign to the left of the name of the device or class of devices, or by double-clicking directly on words, you can see a list of installed drivers. To update the configuration, select the appropriate action in the menu by right-clicking. If in the list you see an icon in the form of a yellow question mark in XP, or a small white circle with a question mark inside on the main icon next to the name in Windows 7, this means that the driver is not installed for the device, that is, the computer cannot use it in his work. You can fix this by updating the configuration, or search for the necessary software manually on the Internet, if you know the model of the device.