Working with Hardware Profiles

After you get all the hardware and peripherals on your system set up and ready to go, you should be set, right? That might be true if your PC is a desktop model, but if you have a laptop that you use both at work and at home, you're faced with a new problem. You can configure your laptop for all the peripherals you use at work, but what do you do when you bring the computer home? Now you have to hook it up to a completely different set of peripherals, which can be a royal pain to reconfigure.

Fortunately for laptop users, Windows XP lets you create multiple hardware profiles for your PC, each with a different configuration, for the changing equipment you use. A laptop used with and without a docking bay is a prime system for creating additional profiles one profile for docked operation, and a second for undocked mode.

I'll level with you. Hardware profiles are notoriously difficult to use. So difficult that few people use them. (I know I don't!) The reality is that Windows XP does a pretty good job recognizing what's hooked up and what's not, so that you really don't need to create separate profiles for different locations.

Still, if you want to play around with profiles, be my guest. Read on and I'll tell you how.

Creating New Hardware Profiles

You create a new profile by copying and renaming an existing profile. When a hardware profile is highlighted and copied, its exact configuration is assumed by the new copy. All you have to do is assign a new name to reflect the new configuration.

Here's how you create a new hardware profile:

1.	From the Control Panel, click the System icon to open the System Properties utility.
2.	Select the Hardware tab and then click the Hardware Profiles button.
3.	When the Hardware Properties dialog box appears (see Figure 6.9), select a hardware profile (such as Original Configuration) and click the Copy button. Figure 6.9. Create a new hardware profile for a laptop computer.
4.	When the Copy Profile dialog box appears, type a new name for the profile over the original name in the To field, then click OK.

Configuring Hardware Profiles

After you've created a new profile, you can configure it by selecting which devices are used by that profile. Here's how to do it:

1.	Open the Device Manager and double-click a device.
2.	When the device Properties dialog box appears, select the General tab and pull down the Device Usage list. If you want to use this device in the current profile, select Use This Device; if you don't want to use this device, select Do Not Use This Device In the Current Hardware Profile.
3.	Repeat Step 2 for any devices you want to activate or deactivate for the current hardware profile.

You can also configure some general settings for each of your hardware profiles.

1.	In the Hardware Profiles dialog box, select the profile you want to configure, then click the Properties button.
2.	When the Properties dialog box appears, check if you're configuring a portable computer, then select the docking state for this profile. You should also check the Always Include This Profile As an Option When Windows Starts option, then click OK.
3.	Back in the Hardware Profiles dialog box, select whether Windows should wait until you select a hardware profile, or select the first profile listed if you don't make a choice.
4.	Click OK when done.