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You need “Device Drivers” for these various devices. Before windows can work with any piece of hardware, it requires a compatible, properly configured device driver. New hardware devices include a setup CD that includes driver files and utility software. Microsoft suggests, that the best time to run this CD is before plugging in the device. If the drivers are signed, the setup program will copy the driver files and setup information file to your hard disk so that installation can proceed automatically when you plug in the device.
When Windows detects a Plug and Play device (after you’ve plugged it into a USB port, for example) but cannot locate a good device driver, it will start the “Found New Hardware Wizard”. Note: You must be logged on as a member of the Administrators group to install hardware drivers. The exact procedure to follow varies, depending on where the driver you plan to install is located. You need to tell the “Found New hardware Wizard” where to find the drivers, whether the device came with an installation CD or floppy disk or you downloaded the driver.
If you skipped loading the device drivers when you first booted your computer, you can go to the “Device Manager” to find out which hardware drivers are installed on your computer. To open the Device Manager you can use any of the following techniques;
1. From the command prompt, enter “devmgmt.msc.”
2. Right-click the My computer icon on the Start menu or the desktop, choose Manage, and then select Device Manager from the left pane of the Computer Management console, under System Tools.
3. From the Control Panel, double-click the System icon and click the Device Manager button on the Hardware tab.
Look at any device where you see a “Yellow Exclamation” point (means this device has a configuration problem). You can click on the plus sign to the left of each category to see individual devices within that category.
To view information about a specific device, double-click its entry in the device list. Each device will have its own Properties dialog box. At a minimum you should see two tabs, “General and driver”. There may be more tabs. The “Driver” tab is the one you want to look at. It lists version information about the currently installed driver for the selected device (if the device driver is installed). Click on the Updated Driver and enter the path for the driver for the device you are trying to install. Do this for all the devices where you did not supply a device driver during the first boot up or where there is a “Yellow Exclamation” next to a device. There’s a lot more information involving Device drivers such as; “Rolling Back to a Previous Driver Version”, “Uninstalling a Driver”, “Troubleshooting a Driver”. Hopefully this will be enough to get you started.
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Patrick
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