The computer management console. Here is the central area where you manage storage, system tools, task scheduler etc…
Control Panel-> Administrative Tools-> Computer Management: Manage local or remote computers. Using Computer Management, you can perform many tasks:
- Monitoring system events
- Configuring hard disks, and
- Managing system performance.
Disk Management is a system utility for managing hard disks and the volumes or partitions that they contain. With Disk Management, you can initialize disks, create volumes, and format volumes with the FAT, FAT32, or NTFS file systems. Disk Management enables you to perform most disk-related tasks without restarting the system or interrupting users. Most configuration changes take effect immediately.
In Windows 7, Disk Management provides the same features you may already be familiar with from earlier versions, but also adds some new features:
- Simpler partition creation. When you right-click a volume, you can choose whether to create a basic, spanned, or striped partition directly from the menu.
- Disk conversion options. When you add more than four partitions to a basic disk, you are prompted to convert the disk to dynamic or to the GUID partition table (GPT) partition style.
- Extend and shrink partitions. You can extend and shrink partitions directly from the Windows interface.
Event Viewer is a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in that enables you to browse and manage event logs. It is an indispensable tool for monitoring the health of systems and troubleshooting issues when they arise.
Event Viewer enables you to perform the following tasks:
- View events from multiple event logs
- Save useful event filters as custom views that can be reused
- Schedule a task to run in response to an event
- Create and manage event subscriptions
The Task Scheduler MMC snap-in helps you schedule automated tasks that perform actions at a specific time or when a certain event occurs.
It maintains a library of all scheduled tasks, providing an organized view of the tasks and a convenient point of access for managing them.
From within the library, you can run, disable, modify, and delete tasks. The Task Scheduler user interface (UI) is an MMC snap-in that replaces the Scheduled Tasks Explorer extension in Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows 2000.
Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) Control is a tool that enables you to configure WMI settings on a remote or local computer.
Using WMI Control, you can perform the following tasks:
- Back up the repository: You can configure the WMI Control to back up your WMI repository on a regular schedule, or you can back up the repository manually at any time. The repository is the database of objects you can access through WMI. You can also restore a previous version of the repository.
- Change the default namespace for scripting: You can change the default namespace that is targeted in WMI scripts.
- Authorize users or groups and set permission levels: You can authorize a user or group to access WMI. For each user or group you authorize, you can set their permission level for specific namespaces.
Device Manager provides you with a graphical view of the hardware that is installed on your computer.
All devices communicate with Windows through a piece of software called a device driver. You can use Device Manager to install and update the drivers for your hardware devices, modify hardware settings for those devices, and troubleshoot problems.
Uses for Device Manager:
You can use Device Manager to:
- Determine whether the hardware on your computer is working properly.
- Change hardware configuration settings.
- Identify the device drivers that are loaded for each device, and obtain information about each device driver.
- Change advanced settings and properties for devices. Install updated device drivers.
- Enable, disable, and uninstall devices.
- Roll back to the previous version of a driver.
- View the devices based on their type, by their connection to the computer, or by the resources they use.
- Show or hide hidden devices that are not critical to view, but might be necessary for advanced troubleshooting.
You will typically use Device Manager to check the status of your hardware and update device drivers on your computer. Advanced users who have a thorough understanding of computer hardware might also use Device Manager’s diagnostic features to resolve device conflicts and change resource settings.
Ordinarily, you will not need to use Device Manager to change resource settings because resources are allocated automatically by the system during hardware setup. You can use Device Manager to manage devices only on a local computer. On a remote computer, Device Manager will work only in read-only mode, allowing you to view, but not change the hardware configuration of that computer.
You can use the Shared Folders Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in to centrally manage file shares on a computer. Shared Folders enables you to create file shares and set permissions, as well as view and manage open files and users connected to file shares on the computer.
Use Local Users and Groups to create and manage users and groups that are stored locally on a computer.
Microsoft Management Console (MMC) hosts administrative tools that you can use to administer networks, computers, services, and other system components.
You can use the Services Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in to manage services that are running on local or remote computers for example, to stop or start a service.
You can also manage services using the sc config command.
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