that a piece of hardware isn’t working because of an IRQ or DMA conflict, you
have to either disable that component or seek the assistance of its manufac-
turer in forcing it to use a different set of resources. (Plug-and-play devices are
designed to be automatically recognized by the hardware and the operating
system when installed; all USB devices are supposed to be of this design, and
many components that attach to other ports can identify themselves to the
system.)Getting there .........................................................................................
Depending how your machine has been set up, several routes take you where
you want to go. The most common is to click Start and then choose Control
Panel; on some machines you may have to click Start, then Settings, and finally
choose Control Panel. Next, double-click the System icon to display the
System Properties panel. A generic laptop has a generic panel; some major
manufacturers have special dispensation from the Creators at Microsoft to
customize the panel slightly. If the panel has been customized by the maker
of the hardware you will often see the model name, information on the micro-
processor in use, and the total amount of installed RAM. The General tab of a
System Properties panel on a modern Toshiba laptop is shown in Figure 5-2.Figure 5-2:
The General
tab includes
information
about the
operating
system
version,
including
any major
Service
Pack
updates,
plus the
name of the
registered
owner and
the serial
number for
the
Windows
version.
Chapter 5: Surviving Basic Training 67