Computer Management

We'll focus on the most important tool here, Computer Management. As you can see in the picture bellow, it offers lots of options and configurable fields.

In the event viewer (first on the list) you can monitor what's happening with your computer. You can see some logs about application and system events mostly. By double clicking on one of them, you can then see detailed information on that item. For example, I detected an error sign on my list and I want to see what is it about. I double clicked it and i can see that there was a conflict in my network (a duplicate name):

The next section, System Information offers some detailed information (as the name implies) divided into some categories, like Summary, Hardware Resources, Components, Software, Applications, etc. Each category comes with lots of information that can help you troubleshoot your system if necessary.

Next mostly used section is Device Manager. Here you can see information on your hardware components and their drivers. If there is a problem, an exclamation mark will show up next to the device.

If you want to disable a component, just right-click on it and select disable from the menu.

**Don't play with this option unless you need it. This can cause some problems if you disable something that you really need.

Another useful section is Local Users and Groups. This refers to the Logon accounts, including settings, documents and desktops. Open this option, and then select users.

Here you can see all the accounts on your computer. To add one, just click on an empty space in the users tab and select New User. Fill in the required information.

You need to enter the username desired, a full name and a description. Note that the last two are just for information they don't have a real role in the account. The password must be entered and by default there is an option that forces the user we just created to change it's password on his first login. Even if we are administrators, user's information is confidential.

If we right-click an username in the list we have some options like Set password (to change the password of the username), delete, rename or go to the Properties tab (where we can disable the account or overrule password expiration policy).

In the properties section there is a Member Of tab. This assigns the username to a group or to multiple groups. In the Windows environment, Groups are used to limit the access to specific tasks or options of the users. For example, the most powerful user will be included in the Administrators groups and the lowest access will be in the Guests group. By clicking the Member Of tab, you can add or remove groups to the account.

The groups restrictions can be set from another administrative tool called Local Security Policy. That's the tool that also sets password rules, like minimum length, maximum password age (after this period it must be changed) and login options (like number of tries in entering the password before the account gets locked out).

The last important section here is Services and Application. Detailed information regarding this can be found in another tutorial, named Speed up Windows Startup.

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