What do you meant by plug and play? Does window 2000 provide this feature?
Plug-and-play is a capability to detect and configure a device and install appropriate device driver. Windows 2000 has the feature of plug and play.
The latest windows operating systems contain a large number of device drivers. When a new hardware device is attached to the computer, it automatically detects the device and installs its driver if it is available. If the driver for the new device is not available, the operating system guides the user to install it manually from CD or floppy disk etc.
Write short notes on each of the following:
- Disk management utility
- Windows explorer
- Print queue
- File management
Disk management utility provides a graphical interface for user to view and perform maintenance on all hard drives and CD drives. The user can check the status of these drives.
The user can find the size of the drive. Disk management also indicates the drive that contains the system partition.
Window Explorer
Window explorer acts as a file manager in windows operating system. It is used to computer. Many actions can be performed on files and folders using window explorer. It can be used to cut, copy, past, rename or delete a file of folder. It contains two panes. The left pane displays folders and drives in a tree vies. The right pane shows the detailed view of the folder or drive selected in the left pane.
Print Queue
Print queue is a collection of all documents that are waiting for printing task. Windows maintains a print queue for all print jobs. Print queue can be used to restart or computer. If multiple printing requests are issued, the printer cannot print them all at once. That is why print queue is used. The print jobs are printed in the same sequence in which they are received in the print queue.
Print queue is displayed in print queue dialog box. This dialog box can be displayed in the following two ways:
- Click start menu. Click printers menu and double click on printer in printers folder.
- A printer icon is displayed in system tray when the printer is printing a document the user can double click on the icon to view print queue.
File Management
File management is a process of maintaining and organizing files in the computer. Files are the recognized by their extension in windows. Window checks the file extension when the user opens a file. File extension is checked to determine what action should be taken. All registered file extensions are stored in windows registry.
A registered file type can have multiple actions e.g. open and print etc. if windows does not recognize the file type, it displays a dialog box to choose the appropriate application to view the file.