This hour introduces you to the concept of Plug and Play. Plug and Play is the name Microsoft created to describe the steps you must go through when installing new hardware on your computer. Before Windows 95, you would have to set jumper switches and make operating system settings. Often hardware and software conflicts would occur, creating many hours of debugging headaches. With Plug and Play, you simply plug new hardware components (memory, disk drives, CD-ROM drives, and expansion boards) into your computer, and Windows 95 immediately recognizes the change and sets everything up properly.
Plug and Play requires almost no thought when installing new hardware to your system. At least that's the theory. In reality, you may still encounter problems, as this hour explains. If Plug and Play does not perform as expected, Windows 95 provides a hardware setup wizard that you can use to walk you through the new hardware's proper installation.
Windows 95 has not only made it easier to change hardware on one system, but it also has added a program for aiding in the change of entire machines! Many people work on multiple PCs. Perhaps you have a laptop and also a desktop computer. Perhaps you work both at home and at the office. Whatever your situation, the Windows 95 Briefcase will help you synchronize your document files so they remain as current as possible.
The highlights of this hour include:
Some computer users actually refer to Plug and Play as Plug and Pray; these users are actually making a good point. Despite the industry hype over Plug and Play, it simply does not always work. If you attempt to install an older board into your computer, Windows 95 might not recognize the board, and you could have all kinds of hardware problems that take time to correct.
Things do not always go right when installing non-Plug-and-Play hardware. You often have to set certain hardware switches correctly. You may also have to move certain jumpers so that electrical lines on your new hardware flow properly to work with your specific computer. The new hardware can conflict with existing hardware in your machine. Most hardware devices, such as video and sound boards, often require new software support contained in small files called drivers that you must install and test.
JUST A MINUTE: Hardware designed before the invention of Plug-and-Play specifications is called legacy hardware.
Before Plug and Play can work in Windows 95, these two Plug and Play items must be in place:
You are running Windows 95, which is Plug-and-Play-compatible. If you do not have the Plug-and-Play BIOS inside your computer (most computers made before 1994 will have no form of Plug and Play compatibility), then you have to help Windows 95 with the installation process by answering some questions posed to you by a new hardware setup wizard. When you purchase new hardware in the future, try to purchase only hardware rated for Plug and Play compatibility.
TIME SAVER: One key in knowing whether or not the hardware is designed for Plug and Play is to make sure the Windows 95 logo appears on the new hardware's box or instructions. Before a hardware vendor can sell a product with the Windows 95 logo, that product must support Plug and Play compatibility. Microsoft calls Windows 95-compatible hardware PC 95 hardware. If you have older hardware already installed under Windows 3.1, you will not have to reinstall this hardware.
CAUTION: Make sure the next computer you buy is Plug-and-Play-compatible. As long as you run Windows 95 on a computer with a Plug-and-Play BIOS, you'll have little trouble installing additional hardware, whether or not the new hardware you're installing supports Plug and Play.
If you run Windows 95, own a computer with a Plug-and-Play BIOS, and purchase
only Plug-and-Play hardware, the most you should ever have to do is turn off the
computer, install the hardware, and turn the computer back on. Everything should
work fine after that. (Perhaps to be on the safe side, you should also Plug and Pray.)
Windows Minute
Plug and Play to Play and Play!
The Plug and Play standard should help both you and computer companies. Think of
these benefits, if Plug and Play delivers as designed:
Plug and Play works both for newly installed hardware and for removed hardware. If you remove a sound card that you no longer want, or remove memory and replace that memory with a higher capacity memory, Plug and Play ought to recognize the removal and reconfigure the computer and operating system automatically. Again, Plug-and-Play is not always perfect and does not always operate as expected, but as long as you run a Plug-and-Play BIOS and install Plug-and-Play hardware, there should be little installation trouble ahead for you.
JUST A MINUTE: Plug and Play does not make legacy hardware obsolete. If you install Windows 95 in a computer that has older non-Plug-and-Play legacy hardware, Windows 95 and the hardware should work fine together.
If you install hardware and find that Windows 95 does not properly recognize the change, double-click the Add New Hardware icon in the Control Panel window. Windows 95 starts the Add New Hardware Wizard, shown in Figure 22.1, which helps walk you through the installation process.
JUST A MINUTE: This hour is not as task-oriented as the rest because the hardware differences among all the readers would make following specific tasks virtually impossible.
Figure 22.1. The Add
New Hardware Wizard helps you install non-Plug-and-Play hardware.
The wizard goes through a series of tests and attempts to detect the newly added
hardware. Suppose you added an internal modem, but you cannot communicate with the
modem. The Add New Hardware Wizard may realize that you have a new internal modem
after running through its series of tests, but may not be able to determine exactly
what kind of internal modem you have. You and the wizard together should be able
to determine the proper configuration.
CAUTION: If you add a new modem to a serial port or a printer to a parallel port, you should not run the Add New Hardware Wizard. The wizard works only for hardware you physically connect to the system unit. If you plug a modem into an existing serial port, that serial port will already be installed, so you don't need to run Add New Hardware. You will, however, have to double-click the Control Panel's Modems icon and select your modem from the list of modems displayed.
The Microsoft programmers understood the need for mobile computing environments when they developed Windows 95. Mobile computing environments refer to those environments in which portable computers such as laptops are used. In the past year or two, companies have begun developing docking stations for computer users who take a laptop with them on the road, and then come home and plug the laptop directly into a docking station. The docking station is a connecting device that connects the laptop to a full-size color screen, printer, mouse, and keyboard. Therefore, the computer user would use the laptop on the road, and then use the laptop's system unit at home or in the office, with regular-size peripheral equipment.
Windows 95 can detect whether or not a computer is docked and make appropriate adjustments instantly and accordingly. When undocked, Windows 95 can use the laptop's screen, and when docked, Windows 95 can immediately adjust the screen to a larger and higher-resolution monitor.
CAUTION: If your hardware is not Plug-and-Play-compatible, you will have to re-boot your computer before Windows 95 can reconfigure itself to the docking. If, however, you have full Plug-and-Play compliance, you don't have to reboot for Windows 95 to recognize the change in docking status.
Windows 95 often can recognize that a computer has been docked, but some hardware does not allow you to undock your PC without Windows 95 knowing about the undocking. If Windows 95 does not recognize the fact that you've undocked, you can select Eject PC from the Start menu, and Windows 95 will know to reconfigure for the undocking and use the laptop's own configuration.
If you have a laptop or desktop with a PCMCIA card, you can plug PCMCIA cards directly into the laptop, changing a PCMCIA hard disk to a PCMCIA modem, and Windows 95 will adjust itself automatically.
JUST A MINUTE: Most hardware manufacturers now shorten the term PCMCIA card to PC card.
Windows Minute
Additional Hardware Support
Windows 95 uses a registry and hardware tree to keep track of the current
and changeable hardware configuration. The registry is a central repository of all
possible hardware information for your computer. The hardware tree is a collection
of hardware configurations, taken from parts or all of the registry, for your computer.
(In addition, your registry holds software settings, as well.)
Luckily, you don't have to know anything about the registry, because Windows 95
keeps track of the details for you. If, however, you want to look at the hardware
tree currently in place on your computer, you can display the Control Panel and double-click
the System icon. Windows 95 displays the System Properties tabbed dialog box, shown
in Figure 22.2. The hardware tree shows the devices currently in use.
Figure 22.2.
The Device Manager tabbed dialog box under the Systems Properties box.
Windows 95 also supports a feature called Dial-Up Networking that lets you,
when on the road, dial up your office or home computer and work just as if you were
on the home or office computer network. The interface to you as a laptop user will
be no different than if you plugged the network cable into the back of your laptop.
The only difference is that you might be 1,000 miles away, and things will run as
if you were attached to the office network. You'll find a Dial-Up Networking wizard
in the Accessories menu.
CAUTION: Full dial-up networking is possible only if the computer you call also is running Windows 95.
If you attach a high-speed parallel or serial cable to two computers, those computers can share files and hardware resources with one another. This is a simple replacement for an expensive network if you want only two computers to share resources.
The Direct Cable Connection option should be available in the Accessories menu. (If the Direct Cable Connection option is not installed, run the Windows Setup option from the Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs icon if you need to install Direct Cable Connection.) Once you select Direct Cable Connection, Windows 95 initiates the wizard shown in Figure 22.3. After answering the wizard's prompts, your two computers will be linked together.
CAUTION: The two computers connected using a direct cable connection must use the same type of port. Therefore, you must connect two parallel ports together or two serial ports together, but not a parallel port to a serial port.
Figure 22.3.
The Accessories menu contains the Direct Cable Connection wizard.
When on the road, you want to work with the most up-to-date data files possible. Therefore, users often copy the latest files from their desktops to portable PCs before leaving on a trip. The direct cable connection, described at the end of the last section, is a great way to copy those files. (Users also use floppy disks to transfer data between two computers.)
Once they return, those users often have to reverse the process and copy their latest laptop data files over the ones on the desktops to refresh the desktop's files so that both computers stay in synchronization with each other. Until Windows 95, the only way to ensure that you were working with the latest data files was to look at the file date and time values and work with only the latest. At best, trying to maintain the latest files was a hassle and often caused confusion and errors as well.
The Briefcase application does all the nitty-gritty for you and synchronizes two
computers that you have connected together via a network or by cable. You'll find
the Briefcase application on your desktop. The first time you double-click the My
Briefcase icon, Windows 95 runs the Welcome to the Windows Briefcase wizard, shown
in Figure 22.4.
Figure 22.4.
The first time you run Briefcase, you'll have to tell Briefcase some details.
JUST A MINUTE: The Briefcase icon appears on the desktop and not on the Control Panel or within the Start menu so that you can drag files onto the Briefcase from Explorer or from an Open dialog box.
Briefcase acts just like a briefcase that you take between your office and home. Before leaving in the morning, you put important papers in your briefcase. In the Windows 95 environment, before going on the road with your laptop, you should drag all data files that you want to work with to the Briefcase.
Suppose you copy two files to the Briefcase icon. After loading the Briefcase
welcome screen, shown in Figure 22.4, close the screen to see the My Briefcase work
area ,shown in Figure 22.5. Figure 22.5 shows two files in the Briefcase window ready
to be transferred to a laptop computer. Close the Briefcase work screen so you can
move the Briefcase files.
Figure 22.5.
There are two document files in Briefcase at the moment.
If you are using a floppy disk for the Briefcase intermediary storage media, move
the My Briefcase icon to the floppy disk. You can display the floppy disk by displaying
the Explorer window or Control Panel and then dragging the My Briefcase icon to the
floppy disk.
Insert the floppy disk into your laptop's disk drive. While on the road, you can work with those files in the Briefcase. If you save a Briefcase file to the laptop's hard disk, be sure to return the file to the laptop's Briefcase before you reconcile the files on your primary desktop computer later.
Once you get back to the desktop, insert the floppy disk into the desktop's disk drive and double-click the desktop's My Briefcase icon once again. Select Briefcase | Update All or select only those files you want to update, and then press the Briefcase | Update Selection from the menu. Briefcase will synchronize the desktop's files by doing one of three things:
TIME SAVER: If you want to update files using a direct cable connection or network instead of an intermediary floppy disk, make the physical connection first to the laptop with a direct cable or plug the laptop into your network. Then drag the files from the desktop computer to the laptop's My Briefcase icon. This sends the files to the Briefcase on the laptop. While on the road, work with the files inside the Briefcase icon. When you reconnect to the desktop or network, you can select the Briefcase | Update All menu command to bring the desktop up to date.
This hour got fairly technical during the discussion of hardware. An operating system must run through several operations before it can recognize and work with new hardware. Fortunately, the Plug-and-Play process makes such work slightly easier and sometimes trouble-free.
As long as you purchase Plug-and-Play hardware and have a Plug-and-Play-compatible computer, you can add all kinds of new hardware to your computer, and Windows 95 should be able to recognize the change and update itself accordingly. Windows 95 includes support for docked laptop computers, so the configuration changes whenever you dock and undock.
If you do not use 100 percent Plug-and-Play hardware, the Add New Hardware Wizard will walk you through each installation and help make the hardware easier to install. If you are simply plugging devices into a serial or parallel port, you do not need to worry about installing new hardware, but you will have to set up a modem or printer driver, using appropriate Control Panel windows.
The interconnection possible in Windows 95 means that you'll be connecting more computers together than ever before. With those connections comes confusion, however. A desktop and laptop computers' files can get out of synchronization. Generally, you want to work with the latest version of a file, but comparing dates and times yourself is tedious and error-prone. The My Briefcase icon solves that problem by making the time and date comparisons for you and refreshing any laptop or desktop files that need refreshing to make sure both systems have the latest versions of document files.
BIOS Stands for Basic Input Output System and refers to the system unit's ROM-based code that handles I/O devices.
Briefcase The Windows 95 application that synchronizes the document files from two computers so that you can always have the most up-to-date files at any time.
Dial-Up Networking The ability of a remote laptop computer to dial into a network over the phone lines and work as if connected to the network by cable.
direct cable connection The connection between two computers with a cable attached to both parallel or serial ports.
docking station A device into which you can insert some laptop computers that instantly connects the laptop to a full-size screen, keyboard, mouse, and printer.
drivers Software files that often accompany hardware to tell the computer how to control the hardware when you install it.
hardware tree A collection of hardware configurations, taken from parts or all of the registry, that your computer may require.
I/O Stands for input and output.
jumpers Special routing connections that a lot of older, legacy hardware requires to change the electrical path flows so the hardware works properly on your specific machine.
legacy Older hardware that was designed before engineers invented the Plug-and-Play specification.
mobile computing environments The computer environment that includes laptop computers and desktop docking stations for the laptops.
PCMCIA Cards Also called PC Cards. Small credit card sized I/O cards that add functionality such as modems and memory to laptops and to some desktop systems.
PC 95 hardware Hardware that has been tested and approved by Microsoft to work with Windows 95 and support such features as Plug and Play.
Plug and Play The name Microsoft gives to hardware that you can install
without making any hardware or software changes. The Windows 95 Plug-and-Play feature
will take care of setting up things correctly for you.
registry A central repository of all possible information for your hardware.
