Introduction

This chapter looks at basic hardware management for storage devices, video, and power on a computer running Windows XP Professional. These devices all have the hardware abstract layer (HAL) in common. The HAL resides at the device level, but acts similarly to an application programming interface (API) in that it translates between the operating system and a hardware device. This enables applications to remain largely device independent because the operating system knows how to communicate with the HAL, which knows how to work the device; therefore, all the application needs to know is how to communicate with the operating system.

Windows XP Professional treats multiple monitors in much the same way, in which applications need only communicate with the operating system and Windows XP manages how those applications are displayed, whether on one or more monitors. The operating system handles how the display is exhibited on the monitors attached to the computer. Applications are unaware of the presence of the monitors and video adapters; the applications simply tell the operating system how their output should be presented.

In this chapter, you review the basic implementation, configuration, and troubleshooting of these types of devices. It is assumed here, as well as on the test, that you already know how to physically install adapters in a computer, so we cover only driver installation, configuration, management, and troubleshooting tasks.