CompTIA A_ Certification All-In-One Exam Guide, Seventh Edition - Michael Meyers [58]
Imagine you’re installing some new device in your PC, or maybe a piece of software. Before you actually install, you take a snapshot and call it “Before Install.” You install the device, and now something starts acting weird. You go back into System Restore and reload the previous snapshot, and the problem goes away.
System Restore isn’t perfect. It only backs up a few critical items, and it’s useless if the computer won’t boot, but it’s usually the first thing to try when something goes wrongs—assuming, of course, you made a snapshot!
BitLocker (Vista Enterprise and Ultimate)
BitLocker is a tool to encrypt files, folders, or entire hard drives. It’s a great way to make sure other people can’t read your stuff, but it also makes data recovery risky. If you really want security, use BitLocker.
Figure 4-80 System Restore
Command Line
The Windows command-line interface is a throwback to how Microsoft operating systems worked a long, long time ago when text commands were entered at a command prompt. Figure 4-81 shows the command prompt from DOS, the first operating system commonly used in PCs.
Figure 4-81 DOS command prompt
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NOTE The command-line interface goes back to the early days of computing, but it continues to be an essential tool in all modern operating systems, including Linux, Mac OS X, and all versions of Windows. Chapter 15, “Working with the Command-Line Interface,” goes into the command line in detail.
DOS is dead, but the command-line interface is alive and well in every version of Windows—including Windows 7. Every good tech knows how to access and use the command-line interface. It is a lifesaver when the graphical part of Windows doesn’t work, and it is often faster than using a mouse if you’re skilled at using it. An entire chapter is devoted to the command line, but let’s look at one example of what the command line can do. First, you need to get there. In Windows XP, select Start | Run, and type cmd in the dialog box. Click OK and you get to a command prompt. In Windows Vista, you do the same thing in the Start | Start Search dialog box. Figure 4-82 shows a command prompt in Windows Vista.
Figure 4-82 Command prompt in Windows Vista
Once at a command prompt, type dir and press ENTER on your keyboard. This command displays all the files and folders in a specific directory—probably your user folder for this exercise—and gives sizes and other information. DIR is just one of many useful command-line tools you’ll learn about in this book.
Microsoft Management Console
One of the biggest complaints about earlier versions of Windows was the wide dispersal of the many utilities needed for administration and troubleshooting. Despite years of research, Microsoft could never find a place for all the utilities that would please even a small minority of support people. In a moment of sheer genius, Microsoft determined that the ultimate utility was one that the support people made for themselves! This brought on the creation of the amazing Microsoft Management Console.
The Microsoft Management Console (MMC) is simply a shell program in Windows that holds individual utilities called snap-ins. To start an MMC, select Start | Run or just Start, type mmc and press ENTER to get a blank MMC. Blank MMCs aren’t much to look at (Figure 4-83).
Figure 4-83 Blank MMC
You make a blank MMC console useful by adding snap-ins, which include most of the utilities you use in Windows. Even the good old Device Manager is a snap-in. You can add as many snap-ins as you like, and you have many to choose from. Many companies sell third-party utilities as MMC snap-ins.
For example, to add the Device Manager snap-in, open the blank MMC and select