Over
the past six months as I built this web site I used a term 'System
Manager' and have received numerous queries as to what it is. So to help
out those that do not have the experience with Windows that a lot of us have I
am going to give a shot at explaining the ins and outs of the System Manger.
The system manager is a tool that you can use to manage different functions and
options for the Windows operating system.
You can get to it either by right clicking on the 'My Computer' icon and
selecting 'Manage' or open the control panel and opening the 'System' icon.
This is called a MMC snap in, it is basically a small program called by the
Microsoft Management Console. It has two windows, on the left is the main index
of items that you can manipulate. On the right is a more granular index that you
can actually work with.
Lets look at each of these one at time, starting with the first major section
System Tools:
The Event Viewer is a list of four logs
Application, Internet Explorer, Security, and System. Now some of the
information in the logs is quite cryptic, you may have to go to Microsoft or the
application publisher to find out what an error code means.
The Application log
is where you would find information, warnings, and errors generated by your
applications. Have
an application that is having problems, look here for the cause.
The Internet Explorer log is for IE
information, warnings, and errors generated by Internet Explorer.
The Security log is for security and audit
related information, warnings, and errors.
The System log is for system and hardware
information, warnings, and errors generated by the operating system, hardware
drivers, or even the hardware.
The next item in the index is the Shared Folders,
here are all the shares for your computer.
Next is the Local Users and Groups, here
you can create or delete local users, ad and remove users from the local groups.
One of the most useless items is the Performance
Logs and Alerts. I say useless because you are not supplied the tools
nor the training required to use the Performance logs or how to setup the
Alerts. Even experienced MCSE's have trouble using and interpreting these logs.
Last is the Device Manager, this is a
very useful tool, you can gain a lot of information from the listing that is
other wise hard to find. You can see at a glance a device that is not working
and get a rudimentary description of the problem, like most Microsoft errors you
have to decode the error to find out what the underlying problem really is.
The Second major index is Storage
Storage is broken down into three parts: Removable Storage, Disk
Defragmenter, and Disk Management.
Removable Storage is any media that you
can remove from the system while it is operating including but not limited to:
CD's, Tapes, external drives.
Disk Defragmenter is a process that will
defrag your hard drive(s).
Disk Management is where you find the
properties of a drive, partition, format, or change drive letters of a drive.
The last major section of the index is Services and
Applications.
Applications are only Microsoft programs
installed by the Operating System.
Services are programs that are
installed to run in the background with out intervention or interaction by the
user, including but not limited to network, video, sound, anti-virus, automatic
updates, and so on.
WMI Control, Window Management
Instrumentation. This is a Microsoft Operating System application.
Indexing Service is a service that
indexes your computer including but not limited to your hard drive and all the
files, your applications and so on.
Internet Information Services, if you
have the local Web Server installed this is where you would create local web
sites, control how they work.
There maybe other Microsoft Applications installed here that I have not
listed.
This site contains a lot of information. As
with any publication not all information is available due to space, time, or
subject constraints.
If you have a question that you did not find the answer
on this web site you a can
ask your question here and we will endeavor to get you the most up to date
answer possible!
