A+ Guide to Managing
and Maintaining Your PC
Fifth Edition
Chapter 12
Supporting Windows 9x
Windows 9x Architecture
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
2
Windows 9x Architecture
(continued)
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
3
Windows 9x Architecture
(continued)
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
4
Virtual Machines
Set of resources made available to an
application through predefined application
programming interface calls (APIs)
Multiple logical machines within one physical
machine
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
5
Virtual Machines (continued)
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
6
Installing Hardware with
Windows 9x
Use Found New Hardware Wizard or run
installation setup program that is bundled with
device driver
View and change current device drivers from
Control Panel (Settings tab of Display
Properties window)
Plug and Play and hardware installations
Use Device Manager to uninstall
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
7
Plug and Play Hardware
Installation Criteria
System BIOS must be PnP
All hardware devices and expansion cards
must be PnP-compliant
OS must support PnP (eg, Windows 9x)
A 32-bit device driver (VxD) must be
available
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
8
Preparing for Software
Installation
Windows 9x can use both 16-bit and 32-bit
software
Check available resources
Protect original software
Back up the registry and system configuration
files
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
9
Installing Software
Use Add/Remove Programs icon from Control
Panel
After installation is complete and software is
working, update backup copies of:
Autoexec.bat
Config.sys
System.ini
Win.ini
Registry
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
10
Keystroke Shortcuts in Windows
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
11
Keystroke Shortcuts in Windows
(continued)
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
12
Keystroke Shortcuts in Windows
(continued)
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
13
Keystroke Shortcuts in Windows
(continued)
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
14
Device Manager
Gives graphical view of hardware devices
configured under Windows and the resources
and drivers they use
Used to:
Make changes
Update drivers
Uninstall device drivers
Print a report of system configuration
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
15
Windows 9x Startup Process
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
16
The Windows 9x Registry
Database of configuration information and
settings for users, hardware, applications, and
the OS
Hierarchical database with a treelike, top-tobottom design
Takes over essential functions of .ini files
Supports System.ini and Win.ini for backward
compatibility
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
17
How the Registry Is Organized
(continued)
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
18
Recovering from a Corrupted
Registry
Windows 95 backup of the registry
Maintains backup copy of the two registry files
Windows 98/Me Registry Checker
Automatically backs up registry every day
Keeps last five days of backups
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
19
Recovering from a Corrupted
Registry with Windows 98/Me
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
20
Modifying the Registry
Automatically
When a change is made in Control Panel or Device
Manager
When software is installed
Manually
Use Regedit utility
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
21
Using the Registry Editor
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
22
Troubleshooting Windows 9x
Problems that occur during installation
Problems that occur during the boot process
Problems that occur during normal Windows
operations
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
23
Troubleshooting the
Windows 9x Boot Process
Check and address any error messages
Boot in Safe Mode
Boot to command prompt using startup menu
Try booting from emergency startup disk
Try Fdisk
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
24
Tools for Troubleshooting Boot
Problems
System Configuration Utility (Msconfig.exe)
Device Manager
Automatic Skip Driver Agent (ADDA)
Windows 9x startup menu options (eg, Safe
Mode, command prompt)
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
25
Windows 9x Startup Menu
Options
Normal
Logged (\Bootlog.txt)
Safe Mode
Safe Mode with Network support
Step-by-step confirmation
Command prompt only
Safe Mode command prompt only
Previous version of MS-DOS
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
26
Command Prompt Only
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
27
Using an Emergency Startup
Disk for Troubleshooting
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
28
Troubleshooting Windows 9x
Hardware and Software
Isolate the problem into one of two categories:
Problems that prevent PC from booting
Problems that occur after a successful boot
Ask the user questions
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
29
General Tips for
Troubleshooting Hardware
Reboot
Check for intermittent memory errors using
memory testing software
Turn on device before turning on computer
Try device with another application
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
30
General Tips for
Troubleshooting Hardware
(continued)
Use Device Manager to:
Check for errors it reports about the device
Uninstall and reinstall the device
Check the Web for updated device drivers
Reseat, move, or replace expansion cards
Determine what changed since the device last
worked
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
31
Troubleshooting Application
Software Problems
Address error messages
Read documentation
Considerations
Virus
Corrupted data files
Potential hardware problem
Corrupted configuration file
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
32
Troubleshooting Application
Software Problems (continued)
Uninstall and reinstall the software
Launch Dr. Watson
Restore Windows system files
Determine what has changed since software
last worked
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
33
Troubleshooting Slow
Performance
Consider a lack of resources
Check hard drive; run ScanDisk and Defrag
Suspect a virus
Close applications not currently in use
Keep icons to a minimum
Clean up registry using Scanreg /opt command
Verify optimum caching
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Fifth Edition
34