To view detailed information about a device, press and hold or
right-click the device and select Properties or simply double-tap or double-click the
related entry in Device Manager. This opens the device’s Properties
dialog box, as shown in Figure 6. Most devices
have at least two tabs, either General and Properties or General and
Driver.
The most important information in the General tab is the
device status. If the device is working properly, this is
specifically stated. Otherwise, the error status of the device is
shown. If the device is disabled, you have an option to enable the
device instead (as shown in Figure 7).
You can temporarily disable a device by selecting Disable on the Driver tab. If you
later want to enable the device, tap or click the Enable Device
button on the General tab and then, when the Troubleshooting Wizard
starts, tap or click Next and then tap or click Finish.
The Driver tab, shown in Figure 8, provides
basic information about the driver provider, creation date,
version, and digital signature. You should be wary of any drivers
that list the provider as Unknown as well as drivers that are listed
as Not Digitally Signed. Drivers signed by Microsoft are listed as
being signed by Microsoft Windows or Microsoft Windows Hardware
Compatibility Publisher.
You can view additional information about the driver by
tapping or clicking Driver Details. If no driver files are required
or none have been loaded for the device, you’ll see a message
stating this. Otherwise, you’ll see the names and locations of all
associated files, including an icon that indicates the signing
status of each individual file. Selecting a file in this list
displays details for that file in the lower section of the dialog
box, as shown in Figure 9.
