PC Maintenance Preparing for A Certification Chapter 30

PC Maintenance: Preparing for A+ Certification Chapter 30: Optimizing and Troubleshooting Windows

Chapter 30 Objectives Understand how to identify and avoid viruses n Become familiar with the major Windows system utilities n

Types of Virus Infections Trojan horse n Worm n @m mailer n @mm mass mailer n Back door n Blended threat n

How Viruses Spread Booting from an infected disk n Running an infected program or macro n Worms can spread from PC to PC via email or P 2 P file sharing n

Symptoms of Infection n n Degradation in system performance Spontaneous reboots odd e-mails Word saves in DOT format only Double-extension on recently opened file Antivirus application will not install, or disabled New users with full security permissions File sizes/dates changed Files disappear System will not boot normally

Virus Definition file contains tell-tale code strings for known viruses and worms n Keep definitions up to date n

Avoid Future Infections Do not open unexpected attachments n Keep Windows and IE patched n Disable extra services that are unused n Do not boot from an unknown floppy n Use strong passwords n Update virus definitions frequently n

Disk Defragmenter Increases performance by decreasing fragmentation n Fragmentation makes files take longer to load n Disable background applications before defragmenting n Run from Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools menu n

Disk Defragmenter

Disk Cleanup Frees up space by recommending files to be deleted n Comes with all versions except Windows 95 n Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools n

FAT 32 Converter Comes only with Windows 98 n Converts FAT 16 to FAT 32 n

Drive. Space Comes only with DOS, Win 95, and Win 98 n Compresses FAT 16 drives to save disk space n Does not work with FAT 32 or NTFS n Drives take longer to defragment n

Computer Management n n Windows 2000/XP utility Found in Administrative Tools in Control Panel

Disk Management n Found within Computer Management n Partition and format disks n Examine disk properties

Microsoft Management Console (MMC) n Customizable version of Computer Management n Can access other computers on the network n Starts out blank n Snap-ins add functionality

Microsoft Management Console

Hardware Diagnostic Tool (HWINFO) n Windows 98 and Windows Me only n Different view of same information as System Information n Run with the /UI switch from the Run command: HWINFO /UI

Scan Disk n n n Finds and fixes file system errors Optionally can check hard disk for physical errors too Exists in 2000/XP but called Check Disk instead

Check Disk n Windows 2000/XP version of Scan Disk

System Configuration Editor (SYSEDIT)

Registry Editor n REGEDIT n n Primary Registry editor utility, in all versions REGEDT 32 Different version in most Windows versions n In Windows XP, running REGEDT 32 redirects you to REGEDIT n n SCANREG n Registry checker, available in 98 and Me only

Other Utilities Dr. Watson n Automatic Skip Driver (ASD) n Task Scheduler n Windows Scripting Host (WSCRIPT) n