Viewing device and driver information
The Device Manager window (Figure 5) is organized in a tree view with the computer name at the top of the window and individual device categories nested beneath.
To view the details about a particular device, expand the
appropriate hardware node and double-click or double-tap the device.
This opens the Properties page for the device, like the one shown in Figure 6. There are several tabs; the tabs that you see depend on the particular device you open. The common tabs are as follows:
-
General
-
Advanced
-
Driver
-
Details
-
Events
The General tab provides you with a quick overview of the device, which includes the current status of the selected device. In Figure 6,
you can see that this particular device is not functional because
Windows automatically stopped the device due to too many errors.
If there are advanced configurable properties for the device, they appear on the Advanced tab, as shown in Figure 7.
For the network adapter shown in this figure, there are advanced
settings that control exactly how the device will behave on the
network. In this case, Jumbo Packet is disabled. To enable it, select
Enabled from the Value drop-down list. Available values change to
whatever is appropriate for the selected property.
The Driver tab includes all the items necessary to fully manage the driver software for the selected device.
You find information about the hardware on the Details tab. Every hardware device has information associated with it. There can be just a little information or quite a lot of information.
The Events tab provides you with a list of system events associated with the device. In Figure 8,
three events associated with the Bluetooth adapter have taken place. By
clicking the View All Events button in this window, the Event Viewer
opens and displays the events in context with other system operations.
Not every device has an Events tab.
