Windows Vista for IT Professionals phần 7 potx

Features for Mobile Computers Introduction Windows Vista makes it easier for mobile users to use computers and networks.. Sync Center is a new feature in Windows Vista that allows you t

Features for Mobile Computers

Introduction

Windows Vista makes it easier for mobile users to use computers and networks

Connecting your computer to a variety of hardware and networks is faster, easier, and more secure than before, and synchronizing data between computers and devices is

simple Windows Vista incorporates many new features that are designed specifically for the mobile user

Objectives

After completing this section, you will be able to:

• Describe Windows Mobility Center

• Understand presentation settings

• List the new features for Tablet PCs

• Describe Sync Center

• Understand how Sync Center can be used

What Is Windows Mobility Center?

Windows Mobility Center contains key mobility-related system settings in one easy-to-find place As you change locations, networks, and activities, you can quickly configure your mobile PC to fit the situation Computer manufacturers can customize the Windows Mobility Center to include additional hardware-specific settings

Depending on your system, you may have one or more areas in addition to the following area:

• Brightness Use the slider to adjust the brightness of your display

• Volume Use the slider to adjust the speaker volume of your mobile PC or select the

Mute check box

• Battery Status View your battery status or select a power plan from the list of

available plans

• Wireless Network View the status of your wireless network connection, or enable or

disable your connection

• External Display Set up a secondary display to give a presentation

• Sync Center View the status of a file sync or start a new sync

• Presentation Settings Adjust settings, such as the speaker volume level and desktop

background image, for giving a presentation

• Screen Rotation Change the orientation for your Tablet PC screen from portrait to

landscape or vice versa (Tablet PCs only)

The Windows Mobility Center is only available if Windows Vista detects the

presence of a battery to indicate that this is a mobile PC

What Are Presentation Settings?

Presentation settings are a set of options that you can apply to your mobile PC

specifically when you are giving a presentation This allows you to have computer

configured one way when working normally, but another when giving presentations Many times when users are giving a presentation, their portable computer will perform inappropriate tasks For example, during a class discussion, the screen saver might come

on With presentation settings, you can ensure that a portable computer behaves

appropriately during a presentation

Options that can be set as part of presentation settings:

• Sleep mode is disabled

• System notifications are turned off

• The screen saver can be turned off

• The volume level can be configured

• The desktop background image can be changed

What Are the New Features for Tablet PCs?

Windows Vista includes new features to make working with Tablet PCs easier Tablet PCs can use the Windows Mobility Center just like portable computers

Additional new features for Tablet PCs include:

• Additional Input Panel features The Input Panel has been enhanced with

AutoComplete, a tab to open and position the Input Panel, support for back of pen erase, easier to use scratch-out gestures, and password security settings

• Personalization of handwriting recognition You can now teach the handwriting recognizer how you write by providing samples In addition, you can also enable automatic learning so that the handwriting recognizer gathers information about how your write over time

• Error reporting for handwriting recognition You can now send Microsoft

information about handwriting recognition errors Microsoft then uses this

information to improve handwriting recognition

• Pen cursors The pen cursors now provide visual feedback for pen actions such as single-tap or double-tap

• Snipping Tool The snipping tool allows you to capture an area of the screen as a graphic and write on it using your tablet pen The graphic can then be placed in any application

• Pen flicks A pen flick is a gesture you make with your tablet pen to quickly perform tasks such as copy, paste, undo, or navigate in a browser

• Touch input For Tablet PCs with support for touch screens, you can now use your finger on the touch screen instead of the tablet pen

What Is Sync Center?

Sync Center is a new feature in Windows Vista that allows you to synchronize files between your computer and mobile devices or a network server To synchronize with a mobile device, the device must be able to communicate with your computer over a

wireless network or be directly connected to your computer Files and folders

synchronized with a network server are called offline files

In an early beta version of Windows Vista, PC-to-PC sync was included as part of Sync Center PC-to-PC sync has been removed in later versions

Each time you sync files between two or more locations, Sync Center compares the files

in each location to see if they have changed If a file has changed, Sync Center copies the new version of the file over older versions of the file If a file is new, it is also copied

If a file has been changed in multiple locations, a sync conflict occurs When a sync conflict occurs, it is not possible for Sync Center to determine which version of the file you want to keep To ensure the appropriate file version is kept, Sync Center will ask which file version should be kept You can also choose to keep both file versions so that you can figure out the changes later

The ability to sync with network servers is not included with Windows Vista Starter, Windows Vista Home Basic, and Windows Vista Home Premium

Sync Center Scenarios

Sync Center is not just about synchronizing files It can also be used to synchronize other data such as music, schedules, or contacts with supported devices

Laptops on the Road

Often laptop users want to take copies of network files with them Using Sync Center makes it easy to ensure that network files are properly synchronized with the laptop before leaving and again when the laptop returns Synchronizing files with a network server ensures that they are backed up

Pocket PC Devices

When you synchronize with a Pocket PC, you can synchronize files, calendars items, and contacts This allows you to have a mobile office on the road Synchronizing calendar items ensures that you don’t miss any appointments Synchronizing contacts allows you

to keep one central contact list so both your Pocket PC and desktop PC have up-to-date contact information for customers, suppliers, and colleagues

Mobile Phones

Many mobile phones have calendaring and contact functions that may be able to

synchronize by using Sync Center The benefits are similar to synchronizing with a Pocket PC device

Portable Music Players

Sync Center can synchronize a folder on your PC to a portable music player As you add and remove music files to the folder on your PC, Sync Center adds and removes them from your portable music player

Demonstration 7: Using Sync Center

In this demonstration, you will see how you can:

• Synchronize files with a network server

Key Points

The key points of this demonstration are:

• Sync Center allows you to synchronize files between a PC and network server

The Boot Process

Introduction

Information technology professionals must understand the Windows Vista boot process

so that they can repair it when problems occur Quickly fixing problems that render a PC unbootable makes users more productive Windows Vista includes several utilities for managing and repairing the boot process

Objectives

After completing this section, you will be able to:

• Describe the Windows Vista boot process

• Understand how to modify the Windows Vista boot process

• Describe Startup Repair

What Is the Boot Process in Windows Vista?

The boot process for Windows Vista has been completely redesigned to support a new firmware standard The firmware used as an interface between computer hardware and the operating system in current hardware is called the basic input/output system (BIOS) The BIOS requires the 16-bit real mode interface of x86 processors

United Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is the new standard for firmware that is architecture independent and allows for the elimination of the 16-bit real mode interface required by the BIOS This makes the boot process compatible between different

hardware architectures such as x86 and Itanium, although each will have it’s own UEFI environment (32-bit for x86 versus 64-bit for Itanium) UEFI is present in Windows Vista Beta 2 for “Technical Preview” purposes but will be removed before the release

candidates are made available

The components used during the Windows Vista boot process are:

• Bootmgr This is the primary application that controls the Windows Vista boot

process In a multiboot system, bootmgr is responsible for displaying the operating system selection menu In earlier versions of Windows, Ntldr was responsible for these tasks

• Boot Configuration Data (BCD) Windows Vista stores boot configuration data in the

BCD Bootmgr reads the BCD to display the operating system menu BCD replaces the Boot.ini file used in previous versions of Windows The data in BCD is stored as

a registry hive and cannot be edited directly

• Winload.exe This is the operating system loader for Windows Vista If Windows

Vista is selected from the operating system menu, control is passed to Winload.exe to start Windows Vista It loads the operating system kernel, hardware abstraction layer (HAL), and boot drivers into memory In a multiboot system, each instance of

Windows Vista has its own Winload.exe

• Winresume.exe This is the resume loader for Windows Vista If Windows Vista

hibernates, and is restarted, Winresume.exe is responsible for restoring windows from hibernation

Modifying the Boot Process in Windows Vista

In earlier versions of Windows, you could modify the Boot.ini manually by using

Notepad or another text editor Modifying the Boot.ini controlled the boot process In Windows Vista, you must use an appropriate tool to modify the BCD instead You cannot edit the BCD by using a text editor

You must have administrative privileges to modify the BCD

The Windows Vista boot modification methods are:

• Startup and Recovery You can modify the default operating system in the boot menu

and how long the boot menu is displayed in Startup and Recovery These settings are similar to those found in previous versions of Windows

• System Configuration You can modify the default operating system in the boot menu

and some of the more advanced boot options by using System Configuration

(msconfig.exe) System Configuration can also perform other non-BCD-related tasks, such as editing which programs run at system startup

• BCDEdit The utility that provides the most complete access to edit the BCD store is

BCDEdit By using BCDEdit, you can edit almost all data in the BCD store as well

as export and import store contents

• Windows Management Interface (WMI) Using Microsoft WMI is the only way to

gain complete access to the BCD store WMI is a programming interface that can be accessed by developers when writing applications

Demonstration 8: Modifying the Boot Process

In this demonstration, you will see how you can:

• Modify the boot process by using Startup and Recovery

• Modify the boot process by using System Configuration

• Modify the boot process by using BCDEdit

Key Points

The key points of this demonstration are:

• You can modify the Windows Vista boot process

• BCDEdit is the most complete tool for editing the Windows Vista boot process

What Is Startup Repair?

Startup Repair is a recovery tool that can fix some Windows startup problems For

example, if the wrong disk partition is set as active, Startup Repair can detect this and set the correct disk partition as active Startup Repair is also able to replace missing or

corrupted system files

To use Startup Repair, you must boot from the Windows Vista installation media and select to repair your system You are then presented with a menu from which you can select Startup Repair This menu also includes the option to open a Command Prompt window from which you can attempt repair operations

Using Startup Repair is a completely automatic process requiring no user intervention Startup Repair may reboot several times as it attempts to repair the problem

Some computer manufacturers may install Startup Repair on the computer hard disk If Startup Repair is installed on the computer hard disk, it can start automatically when a problem is detected Additionally, it can be accessed from the recovery options menu in the Windows Advanced Startup Options menu

Power Management

Introduction

Power management is important for portable and desktop computers Portable computers need aggressive power management to preserve battery life Desktop computers can use power management to reduce electricity costs to their organization Information

technology professionals can use the power management features in Windows Vista to achieve both goals

Objectives

After completing this section, you will be able to:

• Describe power management in Windows Vista

• Describe the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) power states

• Understand the power management changes

What Is Power Management?

Power management is a system in Windows Vista to conserve the consumption of

electricity Windows Vista controls power consumption based on the settings in a power

plan Power plans indicate when power can be reduced for system components To

control the power used by system components, the computer must support ACPI

Power management includes three default power plans However you can create your

own power plans to exactly meet your requirements Additionally, within each power

plan, settings can be varied depending on whether the computer is on battery or AC

power The ability to control power plans by using Group Policy simplifies power

management for large organizations

The default power plans are:

• Power saver Minimizes power consumption to maximize battery life for mobile

computers and minimize electricity costs for desktop computers Processor

performance is limited to 50 percent, which makes this option unsuitable for

computers that run high-performance applications

• Balanced Offers full performance when required and saves power during periods of

inactivity This is the default power plan

• High performance Maximizes system performance and responsiveness Additional

power consumption makes this power plan unsuitable for most portable computers

Processor performance is maintained at the peak level when plugged into AC power