Name: _______________________________
September 5, 2006

1. Missing drivers

After last week's install there are still some drivers to be installed (unless you already fixed this problem).  Go to the Device Manager to and look for the yellow caution signs or question marks.  Since we are working on a Dell system, we will go to www.dell.com to find the missing drivers.  Click on Suport & Help. Click on Drivers and Downloads.  Find the "service tag" on the back of your computer, enter it below and into the textbox on the dell site.  

Service tag:  _________________________

Choose XP as your operating system and click Find dowloads. 

A. One driver we want is under Audio.  Download and install it. 

B. Two drivers (one download) we want are under Video Adpater.  Use one of the lab's regular computers and go to the Device manager to look up the information under the Display adapter (enter it below).  Then choose the corresponding item from the dell site for your computer.  Download and install it. 

Needed Display info:  _____________________________

C. The last driver we want is under Chipset. Download and install it. 

2. Screen captures

One task a support person may have to perform is to write a set of instructions.  Screen captures are very useful when writing instructions.  It is useful to have one's desktop a solid color when making screen captures because one can then make the solid background transparent and have a cleaner looking screen capture.  If your background is not solid, change it. Right click on the desktop region, choose Properties, choose the Desktop tab, select the "None" background, choose a color or accept the default blue color. 

One obtains a screen capture by hitting the Print Screen key on the upper right portion of the keyboard.  At a very low level (e.g. when you are looking at CMOS settings) it actually prints the screen (provided you are connected to a local printer), but under usual circumstances this action places an image on the clipboard.  The image can then be pasted into a document such as Word, WordPad or PowerPoint using Edit/Paste or the keyboard shortcut (Crtl-v).  

Replace my screen capture with yours (yours won’t have my name on it).  

What’s CMOS?  (You can copy a definition provided you cite your source.)  

How does one access the CMOS settings?

Distinguish between a local printer and a network printer.  

Explain why when printing CMOS screen, the printer should be local. 

What’s the clipboard? (You can copy a definition provided you cite your source.)

What’s a keyboard shortcut?  Give another example. 

By clicking Alt-Print Screen you place an image of the application which has the focus instead of the full screen. 

Replace the above screen capture of the calculator with one that displays the value of pi. 

Hitting the Alt key closes any menu that might be open.  Thus, to show an application with a menu open, make a full screen capture and paste into the application.

The final screen capture above has the number 48 displayed in binary with the Digit grouping feature about to be applied.  Paste below a screen capture of the calculator displaying the number 56 in binary with the Digit grouping feature about to be removed. We will return to screen captures again after we install Microsoft Office because we will be able to edit them further. 

3. Network settings instructions

A.	Write a set of detailed instructions for determining the network settings such as IP address, subnet mask, default gateway and DNS server.  Include at least two screen captures and something from the drawing toolbar.

B.	Imagine a scenario in which the mouse is unavailable.  Rewrite your instructions in a way that does not use the mouse. 

4. My Computer

Go to Start/My Computer.

Click on the View system information link under System Tasks. 

What is the name of the computer you are on?

Computer name: ___________________________

Is it set up with domains or workgroups?  How do you know?

Go to the Hardware tab and click on Device Manager.

The Device Manager has an option Show hidden devices under view.  

Are there any hidden items?  If so what?  (You can open two Device Managers to make a comparison.)

What type of NIC does the computer have?

Return to the System Properties dialog and go to the Advanced tab. 

Click on User Profiles Settings.  Click on the change type button.  What are the two types of profiles? 

How are these profiles distinct?

Click on the User Accounts link.  Change the picture associated with my account to the frog.  Enter a password for one of the other accounts. What doid you enter as your password hint?

Return to My Computer.  What information is available under Help/About Windows?  Describe a situation in which this information may be useful.

Paste a screen capture of the EULA below. 

Go to Tools/Folder Options and then the View tab of the resulting dialog box. Choose to show the extensions of files.  Paste a screen capture showing where you set that behavior. Paste a screen capture showing a file with its extension.

Go to the File Types tab, paste a screen capture showing the extensions associated with the Text Document File Type (sort by file type). 

What application opens a PNG file?  How do you know?

Make a Notepad file and try to save it in your my Documents folder. Close it. 

Find the file, right click on it and select Properties from the menu. Replace my screen capture with yours.

Why is there Size and Size on disk? And why are they different?

 
Open the file, edit it, save the changes, close it and view the properties again. Compare the Created, Modified and Accessed times.  What has changed and what has remained the same?

Open the file again, make a change but close the file without saving?  Have any of the properties changed?  If so what?

Make a copy of the file somewhere else on the C drive (not in your “private” folder). What changes (if any) do you see in the Created/Modified/Accessed properties?

5. Searching. 

Go to Start/Search. 

Paste below a screen capture of the animated character that you find most annoying. 

What is his/her/its name?

Paste the results of a search for the clock.avi file.

Use a wildcard to do a search for icon files on the C drive.  Paste a screen capture of the results below.  (Hint recall the Folder options dialog box.) 

How many do you find? What is the largest one?

Do a search on files containing EULA and paste the results below.  

Open one of them in Notepad and use Edit/Find to verify that it does contain the string EULA. Paste a screen capture showing both the Notepad file and the Find dialog box. 

Perform a search for Music.  What file extensions does that include?

6. WinZip instructions.

Write instructions on how to use winzip to compress the file Clock.avi.  

How big was the file before and after zipping?

Before:

After: 

7. Random Tasks. 

Go to Start/Help and Support/Windows Basics/Windows glossary and look up FTP.  Copy and paste the definition below. 

Change the Font size and background color of the Command Prompt.  Choose a color other than purple.  Replace my screen capture with your own.  

Determine how many hops it takes to get to www.yahoo.com. Paste a screen capture showing how you obtained your results. 

Paste a screen capture of the Magnifier (under Accessories/Accessibility) being used.