When you're using the Windows graphical user interface,
there are a number of icons on the desktop that you
can use to start applications.
But there are also ways to start applications from the run line.
This run line allows you to start applications
by typing in the name of the app.
You can see this in Windows 10, Windows 8, and Windows 7.
You can click the Run or the Search option
to be able to type in the name of the utility,
rather than going through menus or clicking
an icon on your desktop.
You can also start a number of these utilities
directly from the Windows command line.
You can bring up a Windows command line
by typing cmd at that run line.
And from there, you can start a number of different utilities
by typing in the name of the utility
and then pressing Enter.
There's a lot of power at the command line.
And as you become more familiar with this environment,
you'll find that it's much faster to do a number of tasks
at the command line, rather than doing
this in the graphical user interface.
To be able to configure different parts of the Windows
operating system or the applications that
are running under Windows, you'll use the registry.
This Registry?
Can be started the command line by typing reg edit.
This is a large hierarchical database
that is used by almost every aspect of Windows.
If you need to make minor changes
to a service or an application, you'll
find that you'll be using the registry
to be able to make those changes.
This means that there may be times
when Microsoft or an application developer
may ask you to make changes to this registry.
A good best practice is to backup
a portion of that registry, called a hive,
into a separate file.
That way, if your changes cause a problem,
you can easily revert to the previous configuration.
Here's the Registry Editor running on my Windows 10
desktop.
And this looks the same whether in Windows 7, Windows 8,
or Windows 10.
On the left side are the HKEYs.
HKEY is a shortcut for Handle to Registry Key.
And there are a number of different categories of HKEYs.
There's one for CLASSES ROOT, CURRENT USER, LOCAL MACHINE,
USERS, and CURRENT CONFIG.
This is a hierarchical structure,
so I can choose one of these settings
and then drill down further from there.
For example, if we choose HKEY LOCAL MACHINE,
you can see there's DRIVERS, HARDWARE, SAM, SECURITY,
SOFTWARE, and others.
Let's choose the SOFTWARE option.
And you can see options here for Google and Intel, Microsoft
and others.
If we choose Microsoft, we get a number of different options.
And I'm going to type in Notepad.
And as I start typing that in it moves down
to the Notepad option.
Inside of Notepad is an option for Default Fonts.
And you can see there are a number of registry names,
registry types, and registry data
for that particular registry setting.
For example, there is a registry entry
for IfFaceName, which allows me to change the default typeface
inside of Notepad.
If I double click, I can change that value data to be
whatever typeface I would like.
Before making any changes to this registry,
lets select the File pull-down menu and choose Export.
This allows me to export information
directly from the registry into a file
that I can put anywhere on my storage drive.
So let's add a registry file onto my desktop called
notepad-registry.
And I'll click Save.
And now, you can see that notepad registry information
has been added to my desktop.
I can now make changes into that particular hive.
And if I find that I've made a mistake,
I can double click that registry file.
And Windows will prompt me to reload that information back
into the registry, so that everything is exactly
the way it was before we started.
Let's make some changes to the registry.
But let's back up those changes so we don't
lose any of this information.
Under this DefaultFont's hive, I'm
going to click the File pull-down menu
and choose Export.
And I'm going to make this the notepad-default-fonts.regs
file.
And I'm going to save it right here on my desktop.
And now you can see that file is listed right there.
If we start Notepad, you'll see the default typeface
is Consolas.
Exactly what it says in the registry.
Let's close out this Notepad.
And let's change that typeface by double clicking on the name.
And let's change it to Courier.
And I'll click OK.
Now if we start Notepad, you'll see that the typeface
is quite different.
It's the Courier typeface.
That may not be exactly what we want.
And if we do make a change like this, especially if there
are multiple registry changes, it
may take some time to go back to determine what we changed
and how we may be able to revert back
to the previous configuration.
In this case, we already saved the registry information.
So if we double click this dot reg file,
Window says that this will be making changes to our device.
We say Yes.
And it tells us that adding information
can unintentionally change or delete values and cause
components to stop working correctly.
If you do not trust the source of this information,
do not add it to the registry.
Since we personally saved this registry file, we can trust it.
So we'll click yes.
And it says that the keys and values
contained in that registry file have
been added to the registry.
And if you watch this Courier, when we click OK,
it now has changed back to Consolas.
And if we start up our Notepad and type in some text,
you can see that the typeface has changed back
to the original setting.
If you've used the Services utility,
you may have started it from the Control Panel
under Administrative Tools and chose Services.
But you can also start Services from the run
line or the command line by typing in services.msc.
The services utility allows you to control
the operations of the background services
that are running inside of Windows.
If you need to enable, disable, or change
any of the settings associated with the service,
you would do it from the Services utility.
This is also a good utility to see the dependencies that are
associated with each service.
For example, some services rely on another service
to be running before they themselves can start.
So you may find that disabling a service may also
disable a number of services along with it
that have dependencies on that original service.
Let's look at an example of some of these service dependencies.
I've started the Services utility in Windows 10.
And I'm going to type print, take me
down to the Print Spoiler.
And if I double click, I'll see all of the properties
for the Print Spooler service.
There's a tab inside of these Properties for Dependencies.
And this will list out two different windows.
The window at the top shows us what
services this particular service is dependent on.
And the bottom window shows us any services that
are dependent on this service.
For example, the HTTP service and the Remote Procedure Call,
or the RPC service, must be running
to have the Print Spooler service running as well.
The Fax service relies on the Print Spooler service running,
which means that it must also rely
on the HTTP service and the Remote Procedure Call service
as well.
If you're doing a lot of system administration,
you may want to build your own management console
to have exactly the utilities you'd like inside of it.
This is the Microsoft Management Console.
And you can start this utility by typing MMC
at the command line.
This allows you to build out exactly what you'd like.
And because of that, it starts as a blank slate.
You can use snap-ins to be able to add in the popular utilities
that you often use.
For example, you can choose Device Manager, Event Viewer,
Local Users and Groups.
Choose any one of these many snap-ins,
and then add them to customize the MMC console.
From there, you can save this MMC console
as a standard console type.
And when you start that console in the future,
you'll have exactly the utilities
you like to use all at a single click on the left-hand menu.
If you've worked in a help desk before,
then you're probably familiar with the remote desktop
function that allows you to see and interact
with the user's computer that may
be located in another room, another building,
or another country.
For Microsoft devices, this is the remote desktop connection.
And the name of this utility is the Microsoft Terminal Services
Client.
You can start this client from the command line
by typing MSTSC.
And that will bring up this remote desktop connection
window.
From here, you're able to type in the name
of a remote computer.
Click Connect, and then you're able to view and interact
with the desktop that's on that remote device.
This is very common for servers that
may not have a screen or a keyboard connected to them.
You would instead connect to those devices using
remote desktop and be able to manage those devices,
even though they don't have a screen or a keyboard directly
attached to them.
In this video, we've already used the Notepad utility.
It's a text editor that is built into Windows
and allows you to very easily view and edit text files.
If you want to view Log files or edit some of the information
inside of a file, you can use the built-in Notepad utility.
You can start Notepad by typing notepad at the command line,
and you'll find that this is available in practically
any version of Windows that you use.
If you're running Windows 7 or Windows 8 and 8.1,
you may be using the Windows Explorer.
In Windows 10 this has been renamed to the File Explorer.
This allows you to view all of the files and folders that
are on your computer from this graphical user interface.
If you need to a launch utility, change the permissions
of a file, or delete information from your drive,
you can do all of that from the File Explorer.
This also gives you an easy way to access network resources.
So you can connect to a network share
and then be able to modify or change
the files that are located on that remote share.
One challenge when troubleshooting
unfamiliar computers is you're not
quite certain exactly what type of hardware or software
may be running on that device.
One way that you can get a consolidated view
of this information is to run the Windows System Information
utility, or type msinfo32 at the command line.
This will show you a breakdown of hardware components,
software environments, and you'll
be able to drill down into all of those
to get more details about exactly how this computer is
configured.
From the Components category, you
can view information about the displays or any network
information.
And then under Software Environments,
you can get details about drivers that may be installed
or any tasks that might be running on the system.
Here's MS Info 32, or the System Information utility,
running in Windows 10.
And the System Summary gives this information,
such as the operating system details,
the BIOS configuration, what different memory might
be installed in this computer, and other hardware details.
You can also find information under the hardware resources.
For example, if you wanted to view the input output addresses
for the hardware in the system, you can view it there.
There's also the Component section.
So if you wanted to view information on the display,
you can get display details right here.
And under Software Environment, if you
want to view things like what drivers were installed,
you can get a detail of exactly how
this system is configured with all of its hardware drivers.
DirectX is an API, or an Application Programming
Interface, that many developers use
to create applications that deal with multimedia or graphics
on Windows operating systems.
If you're trying to troubleshoot a problem with one
of these applications, you may want
to check how DirectX is being used on your local Windows
computer.
And to be able to do that, you can use the DirectX diagnostics
tool or type dx diag at the command line.
This allows you to view DirectX overviews for the system.
You can view how DirectX is used for your display,
for your sound, and for the input for this computer.
This is a good generic diagnostic tool,
not just for DirectX.
So if you are having problems with graphics or sound,
you may want to run some of the tests available inside of dx
diag.
Here's the DirectX diagnostic tool running on Windows 10.
You can get an overview of your system here.
You can view what the display settings are,
the sound, and the input, so that you
can see if what you're expecting to see for this computer
is really being seen that way by DirectX
and therefore being seen that way by the applications that
use DirectX.
The files that are saved on a spinning hard drive
are often split into multiple pieces
and stored in different places on that drive.
To be able to read those files again,
your hard drive must spin around and collect
all of those different pieces from different areas.
And that process takes time.
In order to make all of those file
fragments contiguous, so they're stored next to each other
on the drive, you can run a Defrag from the command line.
This is the Windows disk defragmentation.
And this will go through the process
of picking up all of the pieces of a file
and putting them back together again, all in the correct order
on that spinning drive.
These read and write delays associated
the fragmented file don't exist on a solid state drive.
So if you're running an SSD in your computer,
you will not see a Defrag option available.
If you look at the Properties of your drive,
you'll also see an option there to start the defragmentation.
It's called the Optimize and defragment drive.
And you can simply click the Optimize button
to begin the process.
Running the defragmentation at the command line
requires that you have elevated permissions.
So make sure you run as administrator when
you start that CMD session.
To start the defragmentation, you
would type defrag and then specify the drive letter,
for example, C colon to begin defragmenting the C drive.
When you start the defragmentation process,
it will perform an analysis of the drive
and tell you if it does need optimization.
In newer versions of Windows, this
is automatically scheduled to be performed every week.
So you may find that the defragmentation process is not
something you need to perform manually.
At the command line, the defrag C colon
will show you information about the drive.
It will tell you if there is fragmented space.
And then you can choose to continue with the process
of the defragmentation.
Once it's done, it will say the operation
is completed successfully.
It gives you an overview of the volume, the free space.
And now, of course, you can see that the total fragmentation
is 0%.
If you ever need to take the configuration of your computer
and go back in time to a previous configuration that
was more stable, then you'll want to use the System Restore
utility.
Windows is very good about creating these restore points
whenever something happens with the operating system.
So if you perform a Windows Update or you install
a new application, Windows automatically
creates one of these restore points.
You can start the System Restore when your system boots up
by pressing F8, choosing the Advanced Boot Options
and then choosing Repair.
In Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and Windows 10,
you'll find this option under the Control Panel and Recovery.
When you're performing one of these system restores,
it takes the entire operating system configuration
and reverts it to a previous setting.
This does not guarantee that it will remove any malware
or viruses that may have infected
your system, because that malware is very good at not
only infecting your current system
but also infecting all of the restore points that
may be existing on your system as well.
If you're trying to resolve a problem that is not
related to malware, then System Restore
is a very good option for taking your computer back
to a known good setting that was in the past.
Windows Update is the utility built into Windows 7,
Windows 8, 8.1, and Windows 10 that
can provide automatic updates for the operating system,
drivers, and applications.
This can be configured to be completely automatic.
So as soon as an update is available,
your system will download it and automatically install it.
You can configure Windows to download the files,
but perhaps wait for you to install that particular update.
Or you could tell the system to check,
but don't download any of these files, which
can be especially useful if you have limited bandwidth.
There is also an option in Windows Update
to tell your system to never check for updates.
But given how frequent the number of updates
are for security patches, that is not something
that you probably want to do.
In Windows 10, you have a few additional options
available for the update process,
including telling Windows when to schedule a restart
and when the active hours of your computer might be.
So that Windows update will only take effect
when your system is not in use.