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Chapter 5: Customizing Your Computer’s Hardware Devices

Early FireWire implementations, which I’ll call standard FireWire (as opposed to the

FireWire, FireWire 100, or FireWire 200 designation), have a different number of

pins on their connector cables and a different number of connectors on their ports.

Because of this, you can tell standard FireWire and FireWire 400 apart by looking

closely at the cables and ports. If you look closely at standard FireWire cables and

ports, you’ll see four pins or four connectors. If you look closely at FireWire 400

cables and ports, you’ll see six pins or six connectors. FireWire 400 cables may also

be slightly thicker than standard FireWire cables (because they have more wires and

require more shielding than standard FireWire).

When you are purchasing an external device for your computer, you’ll also want to

consider how easy it is to connect the device to different systems. Although just about

all Windows-based computers have USB 1.0 or higher ports, not all computers have

FireWire ports. Because of this, if you are purchasing an external device for use at

home and at the office, you may want to get a device that supports USB. For a bit more

money, you also may be able to get a device with a dual interface that supports USB 2.0

and FireWire 400, or a triple interface that supports USB 2.0, FireWire 400, and Fire-

Wire 800. A device with dual or triple interfaces will give you more options.

Hardware Installation: What You Need to Know

Each hardware device installed on your computer has an associated device driver.

The device driver tells the operating system how to use the hardware abstraction

layer (HAL) to work with the related hardware device. The HAL in turn performs the

low-level communications with the hardware device. When you install a hardware

device through the operating system, you are essentially telling the operating system

about the device driver it uses, and this is what allows the operating system to work

with the device.

When you are installing hardware devices and working with device drivers, you need

to know:

• Where the operating system stores device drivers

• How the operating system validates device drivers

• When the operating system checks for driver updates

You’ll find answers to these questions in the sections that follow.

Where Does the Operating System Store Device Drivers?

Windows Vista has an extensive library of device drivers, which are maintained in the

driver store. You’ll find the driver store in the %SystemRoot%\System32\DriverStore

folder. Within the driver store, you’ll find subfolders with localized driver informa-

tion for each language component configured on the system. For example, for local-

ized U.S. English driver information, you’ll find a subfolder called en-US.

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The driver store also has a file repository containing nearly ten thousand files that

support tens of thousands of different devices. The file repository is located in the

%SystemRoot%\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository folder. The purpose of the file

repository is to be the main storage location for device drivers. As you install updates

and service packs for the operating system, you may also be updating or changing

driver information files in the file repository.

Microsoft has certified every device driver in the driver store to be fully compatible

with Windows Vista. These drivers are also digitally signed by Microsoft to ensure

their authenticity. When you install a Plug and Play hardware device, Windows Vista

checks the driver store for a compatible device driver. If a device driver is found,

Windows Vista automatically installs the device.

In the file repository, device drivers are organized by device class. In the various sub-

folders, you’ll find .inf and .sys files for each device driver. You may also find .man

and .dll files for drivers.

All device drivers have an associated Setup Information file, which ends with the .inf

extension. The .inf file is a text file containing detailed configuration information

about particular classes of devices or a related set of devices. As an example, the

msmouse.inf file has driver information for logical serial mouse and logical PS/2

mouse devices from Microsoft (see Figure 5-3).

Figure 5-3. Viewing the devices associated with the driver file