We can extend and customize the functionality of our operating
systems by installing applications.
These applications are available directly
from the application developer or for the app
store that's associated with your operating system.
But of course, not every application
will run on every operating system.
So in this video, we'll look at some of the important criteria
to consider when installing an application.
The first thing you should do is look
to see what type of processor is supported in your operating
system.
Is it a 32-bit processor, or is it a 64-bit processor?
This single specification will have a big difference
on the type of applications that will install onto this system.
One of the biggest differences in specifications
between a 32-bit and 64-bit operating system
is how much total memory, or random access memory,
can be accessed by that operating system.
A 32-bit operating system can reference two
to the 32nd power, or around 4 billion separate values
of memory.
In a 64-bit operating system, we can reference
over 18 quintillion values.
And if we compare that to a 32-bit that
supports four gigabytes, we can have a 64-bit operating
system supporting over 17 billion gigabytes of memory.
Of course, it's not very practical to have
a single system with over 18 billion gigabytes of memory.
And in fact, many operating systems
do have a logical limit on what the maximum amount
of supported memory would be for that OS.
This difference between 32-bit and 64-bit
is also important when you're installing a hardware driver.
That driver has to match the version of the operating system
you're using.
So if you're using a 32-bit version of the operating
system, the hardware driver has to be a 32-bit version.
If it's a 64-bit OS, it needs to be a 64-bit driver.
With applications, this criteria is slightly different.
If you're running a 32-bit operating system,
you can't run applications that have been designed
for 64-bit operating system, but if you're running a 64-bit OS,
you can run not only 64-bit applications but also
32-bit applications.
You can think of a 64-bit operating system
as being backwards compatible and allowing you to also run
32-bit applications.
If you're installing applications on a 64-bit OS,
Windows will put those applications
into a specific folder, depending on if they
are a 64-bit app or 32-bit app.
32-bit applications are stored under program files, x86,
where 64-bit applications are simply
stored under program files.
So if you're trying to determine whether you
can use a 64-bit or 32-bit application,
you can look at the specifications
for your operating system to determine
whether it is a 64-bit operating system or a 32-bit operating
system.
The type of graphics processor you're using in your system
can also be important when installing applications,
especially if it's an application that
heavily uses the graphics functionality in your operating
system.
Many computers include integrated graphics,
where both the CPU and the graphical processing unit
are on the same package.
So when you install a CPU, you're
also installing the GPU for your system.
This uses the common system memory for the graphics.
And if you have a small system, such as a laptop
or mobile device, it very often is
using one of these integrated graphics functions.
This is very common to find in laptops
and other mobile devices because you can effectively
have both your CPU and graphics capability on the same chip.
But of course, if you're using a more advanced application that
needs more capabilities from the graphics of your system,
then you'll probably want an external, or dedicated,
graphics card.
This is an example of one of those cards.
We sometimes refer to these as discrete graphics cards.
These contain their own processors, their own video
memory, and contain all of the power
you need to run these high end graphics applications.
If you're not sure what your application requires,
make sure you check the documentation to determine
if the integrated GPU will work or if you'll
need a discrete graphics card.
When you read through the specification
of an application's minimum hardware requirements,
one of those specs is for random access memory, or RAM.
And that's the memory that you see on the module
that we have in this image.
We consider this to be a critical specification
because your application and any part of data running
for that application has to execute inside
of this random access memory.
And if you don't have enough memory,
then you're not able to use that application.
This is obviously a specification
that goes above and beyond the requirements
that your operating system is already using.
So if your operating system requires four gigabytes
of memory and your application also
requires four gigabytes of memory,
you'll need a total of eight gigabytes of RAM
to use that application.
We often refer to the CPU, or central processing unit,
as the overall computing capability
for a particular computer.
This is a very broad description,
but it's basing this on the clock speed
that's associated with a particular processor.
For example, the clock speed on the processor on this image is
a 3.5-gigahertz processor.
And we can start comparing processors
based on this relative speed.
Of course, there are other criteria
that help determine whether a processor will
be faster or slower than another,
but using a processor speed is a good starting point
so that you can at least set a relative value
between processors.
This is another place where you'll
need to reference the application
specifications to see what the minimum CPU is
for running this application.
If most of your work is in a word processor,
then you'll need a certain level of CPU.
But if your work tends to be something like video editing,
where there's a lot of processing that's required,
you may need a more high powered CPU to be
able to use that application.
One challenge that software developers often
have is making sure that their applications are
licensed appropriately.
One way that these developers can
confirm that their application is being used appropriately
is by using an external hardware token
like the one you see here.
This is a simple USB-connected device
that you would plug into your computer,
and the application will only work if that hardware
device is present.
If the hardware device is not plugged in,
the application will simply not launch.
This can obviously be a challenge
if you have a lot of different people
in an organization that need to use a particular application
but you have a limited number of licenses available.
You effectively have to physically hand
this USB key to anyone who might need to use this application.
It may be that you've never run into a licensing
system like this before.
That's probably because you commonly
see this associated with very high end software that
has a very high price tag.
This ensures that anyone using this application
has a valid license, and we know that because they have
the external hardware token.
Another important criteria during the installation process
is how much space this application will
take on our storage device.
Normally, the application requirements
will tell you that you need a certain amount of free disk
space to be able to install this app.
In many cases, the amount of space
these applications use is very minimal
and doesn't have a major effect on the system,
but there are certain applications
that use a very large amount of drive space.
So it's important to know exactly how
much needs to be free before you install the application.
In the days before the internet, we
would acquire software by visiting a retailer,
purchasing that software, and then taking
the software to our computers for installation.
These days, we can simply download any software
we might need, whether that's an operating
system, an application, or anything else
we can install on our system.
Ideally, we'd be acquiring the software
directly from the application developer or from an app store
that we can trust.
You would generally want to avoid
going to an untrusted, or unknown, third party
to install applications on your work or home computers.
In some cases, though, you might be
working with systems that don't have
direct access to the internet, and this
makes it a bit more difficult to install software
because you can't simply download that software directly
to the system.
Instead, you would need some type of media
to be able to load the software and then deliver that directly
to that computer.
You can do this through optical media, such as a DVD-ROM,
or put the software on a USB drive
and connect directly to the system.
Prior to the advent of downloadable applications
and USB drives, we would commonly use optical media
to install our applications.
This might be a CD-ROM or a DVD-ROM,
and we would need those types of readers
in our system to be able to install the software.
But even as the use of these optical media faded away,
we still needed some way to be able to take
with us the entire drive and be able to install everything
that was on that optical disk.
Fortunately, there's a standard format
for taking everything that's on a drive
and putting it into a single file called an ISO file.
This ISO file is effectively a sector-by-sector copy
of everything that's on that optical drive.
The optical drives themselves have a very standard format
for putting information onto those drives
called an ISO 9660 file system.
This file system was created to be a standard
that we could use worldwide through the International
Organization for Standardization, which
is where we get the ISO abbreviation from.
And that's why we call this an ISO file because we've
effectively taken an ISO 9660 file system
and collapsed that all into a single file.
Most of our modern file systems will recognize an ISO file.
And if you double click on the ISO file,
it will show you on the screen a representation of what
that original optical drive looked like in its file
structure and content.
So in this diagram, I have a single ISO file,
which is called ESD-ISO, and when
I mounted that file on my operating system,
you can see that it looks like a full and complete file system.
Instead, it's all running from a single file.
I mentioned earlier that we have to be very careful
about the source of these installation files
and what you're installing on your system.
That's because anytime you install
an application on your system, that application
is running with your rights and permissions.
This means that any applications that you install
will have exactly the same access
that you do to this system.
And if this application is poorly written
or has malicious software inside of it,
then it can create a lot of problems on your system.
We also have to think about the impact
that a particular application install might
have to your overall system.
For example, you might upgrade an application,
and then suddenly, that application
is no longer working properly.
In those cases, you may have to downgrade the application
or reinstall from a known good backup.
There might also be times when installing a new application
might slow down your entire system,
or even worse, begin deleting files and other data
from your computer.
Of course, your system is also networked
with a lot of other systems that are in your office,
and if you install an application on your computer,
that application can now communicate with anyone
else who's on that network.
If you think about rights and permissions
that you might have to connect to file shares
across the network, then that is exactly the same rights
and permissions that the application
has to connect to exactly the same data.
We also have to think about the broader
impact of installing a new application on a system
and having problems that might occur.
This could be a problem for people
that need to complete some tasks quickly,
and this application may be causing problems
to the overall timeline.
You could also run into situations
where an updated application also
includes an updated user interface or an updated
workflow.
This means that users may need to be retrained to continue
using this application.
And of course, installing an application
could cause the entire system to stop working,
which is why we always mention how important it
is to have a backup before you start making changes
to a system.
And if you're running a company, you
may be very sensitive to these applications working or not
working.
If you have problems with an application,
you could have downtime, outages,
and the overall business may suffer.
It may be that this application is simply one of many tasks
that have to complete for your overall job process to occur.
So if you have a problem with the application,
you could be bringing the entire business to a screeching halt.
It's important if you're planning
to install a new application, or to upgrade existing
applications, that you've done as much testing as possible
and you have a way to revert back
to the original configuration if you run into problems.