Know Your Computer

Often when troubleshooting or upgrading a computer, you need to know the specs - information about the computer's OS, RAM, CPU, and many more. So where are you going to find this information? One way (slightly advanced) is to open the System Information viewer (Start>Run>msinfo32.exe). More ways to locate system information are explained below.

System Properties Window

How to access: Hold Start Key and press Pause/Break.

The Systems Properties Window is your portal into the hardware of your computer. On the General tab under System you can find the Operating System name, version, and service pack. Below that is the name of the person the computer is registered to and the registration key used to activate it. Below that is the model name(may not always be same as on box), processor name and speed, and amount of RAM. This is usually enough to get by with, but sometimes you need more, so read on.

Device Manager

How to access: Hold Start Key and press Pause/Break.

Switch tab to Hardware and click the Device Manager button.The Device Manager Window is the advanced portal into the hardware of your computer. From the available categories listed, you can find information regarding just about everything in your box. I cannot begin to list all of them or how to access them, so I will name a few commoners.

Display Adapters (Graphics Card)

If you need info on your graphics card, expand the Display Adapters node and right click on your card. Select Properties from the menu. From the Properties window, you can update/install/rollback the driver, troubleshoot, and enable/disable the card. There are also loads of details about your graphics card available from this window.

DVD/CD-ROM drives

If you need info on your DVD/CD drives, expand the DVD/CD-ROM drives node and right click one of them. Select Properties from the menu. From the Properties window, you can update/install/rollback the driver, troubleshoot, and enable/disable the drive. There are also loads of settings and details about your drive available from this window.

My Computer

How to access: Double click My Computer from Desktop or Click Start and then select My Computer

The most important information that you can find in My Computer is your hard drive size/free space. To do this, right click on Local Disk (C:) and select Properties. The amount of free space on the drive is next to the pinkish square (to the immediate left of GB). The size of the drive is loacted to the right of Capactity (to the immediate left of GB).