IT Essentials Chapter 5 Exam Online

Controlling hardware access and managing applications are functions of an operating system. Text processing, flow chart editing, program compilation, and web browsing are functions of applications.

The two methods to install the driver manually are to use the media that came with the device or to download the driver from the website of the manufacturer.

An operating system that has multiprocessing capability can support two or more CPUs.

Operating systems use device drivers to communicate directly with hardware components.

DirectX is a collection of APIs used by Windows operating systems to support various multimedia tasks.

Windows 8 introduced the Metro user interface.so that users could use touchscreens that are commonly found on mobile devices. The Windows 8.1 version helped with users who did not have a touchscreen.

A customized application requires that the technician consult the applications documentation or contact the programmer or company that created the application to determine if the customized application is compatible with the new operating system version.

Upgrade Advisor is a utility that can be obtained from Microsoft that will scan the system prior to the upgrade and notify the user of any incompatibilities in the hardware platform and existing programs. The report generated by the Upgrade Advisor utility not only points out the incompatibilities but also proposes possible resolutions to the problems identified.

Under the MBR partition scheme standard, up to four partitions can be primary partitions, but only one of them can be marked as active. Even though the C: drive is normally the active partition, a computer could have another drive letter (partition) marked as active. The recovery partition is never used in normal operations as an active partition, but is used when no other means is possible to recover the operating system to the original configuration.

The best way to restore an operating system that has been corrupted by a virus is to use a prior system image to conduct the restore. CHKDSK is a Disk Error-Checking tool in Windows 7. It is useful in troubleshooting errors caused by corruption of the physical disk surface and can also be used to check the integrity of various files and folders within the operating system. In order to use differential and incremental backups to restore the system you would also require the last full backup as well.

The recovery partition is often a hidden partition accessible from BIOS Setup or through the use of a particular keystroke. The recovery partition is used to restore the computer to its factory state. However, all user data and applications installed after the computer was purchased are not restored.

The Refresh your PC tool is available on Windows 8 and higher operating systems. It restores the computer to its factory state without deleting user files. The recovery partition tool does not preserve user data, but does return the computer to a factory state. The System Restore utility restores the computer to a previous time without affecting user data. BIOS backup is available with some computers but does not affect the state of the system partition.

The error messages are difficult to read so the best solution is to first try to disable the auto restart function by accessing the Advanced Startup menu before the OS loads. Then the error messages can be read and further action taken to resolve the rebooting problem.

Pressing F8 while booting a Windows PC will present a set of advanced startup options, including Safe Mode and Last Known Good Configuration. Last Known Good Configuration boots the system using the drivers and settings that were present the last time the system was successfully booted, and can be used to quickly restore a system that has stopped working. It’s important to remember that Last Known Good Configuration will only work immediately after a failure. If the system boots successfully to Windows, it will overwrite the Last Known Good Configuration info and it will no longer be useful in recovering the system.

The Registry contains all settings chosen from Control Panels, file associations, system policies, applications installed, and application license keys.

A dynamic link library (DLL) contains program code that a number of applications may need to access in order to run. In order for programs to find the DLLs that they require, the DLLs must be registered. To create a registry entry for a DLL that failed to register when it was installed, use the regsvr32 Windows command.

Safe Mode can be used to bypass failed drivers and other startup issues. To access Safe Mode, reboot the system and press the F8 key just before the operating system begins to load. Several advanced startup options will be displayed, including safe mode.

There are several different types of advanced startup options, including three options for starting in Safe Mode. Safe Mode starts Windows with a very limited set of drivers and bypasses many startup options. Safe Mode with Networking is similar to Safe Mode, but includes the drivers necessary for the system to connect to the network. Safe Mode with Command Prompt starts the system and launches a command line interface that can be used to enter commands manually.

RAID 5 requires a minimum of three disks to implement. A RAID 5 volume uses parity for each stripe in order to provide fault tolerance in case of one disk failure.

A spanned volume requires at least two drives. The combined drives are seen as one volume with one drive letter. When one drive is filled, data is then written to another drive in the volume until it is full.

The Disk Management tool is used to view and manage disks. A normal disk should show a status of Online. A disk with a status of Offline or Unreadable may be corrupted.

Compatibility mode is used to emulate the environment of an earlier operating system. This allows applications that are not compatible with current operating systems to still be run.

Within a 64-bit operating system, the 32-bit programs are installed in the C:\Program Files (x86) folder. The 64-bit applications are installed into the C:\Program Files folder.