One of the most important parts of the system administrator's job is to understand the relationship between the operating system and the various system devices. The majority of installation configuring and troubleshooting tasks are performed using the Device Manager snap-in. It will be important to know Device Manager thoroughly.
To ensure the stability of your servers and to have all your devices operate properly, it is critical that the devices be compatible with Windows Server 2003 and that you use only signed drivers from reputable sources.
Modern system boards (motherboards) meet the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) standard, which means the operating system running in that system will be able to recognize and configure all installed hardware that is built to the Plug and Play specifications.
A device with an ACPI-compliant motherboard can have its devices selectively powered down or put into sleep mode. This allows battery-powered computers to have maximum battery life.
Older hardware, particularly devices that were built to the Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) specifications, cannot be managed by Windows Server 2003, so manual configuration is necessary to make sure the resource usage by these devices does not conflict with other devices on the computer.
Device drivers are software components that allow communication between the operating system and devices. They run very close to the kernel of the operating system, so it is crucial that they be trustworthy. Driver signing assures the administrator that the drivers running on a computer are legitimate. Running unsigned drivers compromises the stability of your computer.
You can ensure that no unsigned drivers can be installed on your computer by configuring the driver-signing options on the computer. For large numbers of computers, it's recommended that you create a Group Policy Object to automate this configuration.
To check whether there any unsigned drivers on your computer, run File Signature Verification, which you access by using Start, Run, sigverif.exe.
Windows Server 2003 includes an important service, Windows File Protection, that automatically removes any unsigned system files and replaces them with signed files.
For any hardware device, as many as four different resources can be defined: direct memory access (DMA), interrupt request (IRQ), input/output (I/O) port, and memory address. It is important to avoid conflicts between devices attempting to use the same settings for a given device. If the devices are Plug and Play compatible, these conflicts will not arise. If they are not, you may have to perform some manual configuration.
To determine the settings for a device, or to configure devices manually, you use the Device Manager tool. When you start Device Manager, devices that are not working properly are shown with a yellow question mark icon. Devices that are disabled have a red X over the icon. Device Manager does not manage device drivers for printers and fax devices.
Occasionally you will find that an error message is displayed when you attempt to assign the same IP address to a new network card, if you did not uninstall the old card before you removed it from the computer. You must start Device Manager with a special parameter to make the absent network card visible and capable of being deleted.
There are methods by which you can override the warnings that Device Manager presents if you try to install old or unsigned drivers. We don't recommend you do this, however, if you want to maintain the reliability of your computer.
Use the Add Hardware Wizard to install devices that are not automatically recognized and installed by the operating system.
You will be unable to deselect Use Automatic Settings on the Resources tab for a device's properties if the device is Plug and Play compatible and being managed by the operating system.
Use the Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) or the compatibility checker program to determine whether any devices in a computer are incompatible with Windows Server 2003.
Remember to "Just Say No" if you are tempted (or asked) to use unsupported devices or unsigned drivers on your computer.
