Franske ITC-2000 Windows Tools Lab

In this lab you will explore a number of built-in tools and utilities in Windows 7. You can complete this lab using the Windows 7 virtual machines (VMs) that you installed in a previous lab.

Task Manager

1. Log on to your system with an administrative account
2. Open an Internet Explorer browser window and minimize it
3. Open a folder on the system and minimize that window as well
4. Open the Task Manager by right clicking on the taskbar and selecting Task Manager then try closing task manger.
5. Open the Task Manager by pressing CTRL+ALT+DELTE on your keyboard and selecting Task Manager from the menu. Note that if you're in a VM you can't do this on your physical keyboard because it will do it on the host system instead of in the VM. Instead you should look through the menu options on the VM window to find one to send a CTRL+ALT+DELETE combination to the guest VM.
6. Try closing the Internet Explorer browser session by selecting it on the Applications tab and choosing to "End Task". This can often be used to close unresponsive applications.
7. Spend several minutes looking through each of the other tabs in the Task Manager window. You should be able to identify the usefulness of each of these tabs in troubleshooting various system issues. If you are unsure about something discuss it with your partner and neighboring groups or ask the instructor.

Creating Additional User Accounts

1. Log on to your system with an administrative account
2. Open the system control panel and open the "User Accounts" control panel
3. Click the link to "Manage another account" and then "Create a new account"
4. Read about the different types of accounts and then create a new standard user account with the user name "ITC-Standard"
5. Set the password for the ITC-Standard account to "standarduser" and the password hint to "stanadarduser"
6. Close all open windows
7. Log out of the administrative user and in as the ITC-Standard user
8. Try to change some system settings and see if you are able to do so
9. Log out of the ITC-Standard account and back in as an administrator

Explore the System Control Panel

1. Log on to your system with an administrative account
2. Open the System control panel by clicking on the start menu, right-clicking on "Computer" and selecting Properties. This same control panel can be accessed by opening the "System" option from the control panel window.
3. Review the information available in the system information control panel including the Windows edition, the experience rating, processor and RAM.
4. Click the "Advanced system settings" link on the left side of the screen to open the "System Properties" window.
5. Explore each tab of the System Properties and determine what settings and information can be accessed from each one. If you are unsure about something discuss it with your partner and neighboring groups or ask the instructor.

Explore Computer Management and the Device Manager

1. Log on to your system with an administrative account
2. Open "Computer Management" by clicking on the start menu, right-clicking on "Computer" and selecting Management.
3. Explore each of the six "System Tools" as well as the Disk Management and Services tools. You should be able to identify the usefulness of each of these tools in troubleshooting various system issues and changing system settings. If you are unsure about something discuss it with your partner and neighboring groups or ask the instructor.
4. Re-open the "Device Manger" tool and browse through the various devices which are installed in your system.
5. Click on the small arrow next to "Display adapters". Double-click on the adapter name to open the Properties window.
6. Look through each of the tabs in the device properties window and determine what settings and information can be accessed from each one. If you are unsure about something discuss it with your partner and neighboring groups or ask the instructor.
7. Close the display adapter properties and try opening the properties window for another device on your system. Compare the options available to those you saw in the display adapter.

Manage System Services and Logs

1. Log on to your system with an administrative account
2. Verify that Windows Defender program is installed and operational by opening your Start menu and searching for "Windows Defender". Run the program and turn it on if you are prompted to do so. Leave the program running in the background.
3. Open the "Administrative Tools" within the control panel
4. Open the "Services" control panel. (Where else have you seen this control panel?)
5. Organize the windows on your screen so that you can see both the Windows Defender and the Services windows at the same time.
6. Find the "Windows Defender" service in the services list and note the status of the service. Right-click on the service and select "Stop" and verify that the service is now stopped.
7. Note what happens on the Windows Defender application when you stop the service. Is it still possible to scan your system? It's important to know the consequences of disabling various system services before doing so.
8. Click the button in Windows Defender to re-start the service and then verify in the services control panel that the service has restarted.
9. Close the Windows Defender application and the Services control panel.
10. Open the "Event Viewer" administrative tool
11. Explore the various logs available on your system.
12. Looking specifically at the "System" log see if you can find entries that show where the Windows Defender service was stopped and re-started.
13. Close the event viewer and all other windows on the system.

Perform Hard Drive Maintenance

1. Log on to your system with an administrative account
2. Read this Microsoft documentation on scanning a hard disk for errors and follow the instructions provided there. At the end of the scan click the down arrow next to "See details" and review the detailed results of the scan before closing the dialog box and windows.
3. Open the "Event Viewer" administrative tool
4. Look through the "Application" logs and see if you can find the chkdsk log related to your drive scan.
5. Close the event viewer and other windows.
6. Read the first post on this page of SevenFourms about running Disk Defragmenter and follow one of the three options given for defragmenting your C: drive.
7. Close disk defragmenter and other windows.