Use Administrative Tools in Windows 7

In this article we will show you how to discover and use the advanced tools included in Windows 7 to manage your system.

Administrative tools are a term that Microsoft uses for advanced system management programs. Windows 7 is like the predecessors Windows Vista and Windows XP, and also has shortcuts to some of the programs in the Administrative Tools folder.

In this article, we'll focus on the tools and features that don't have Windows XP that are only available in Windows 7.

Search Administrative Tools in Windows 7

Administrative Tools can be launched from the System and Security Category entry in the Control Panel of Windows 7 (Figure 1) or from the view of Large or Small icons.

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Figure 1: When accessing Administrative Tools from System and Security Category, you can also launch Disk Cleanup or Disk Defragmenter features.

Like Windows Vista and Windows XP, you can also choose Administrative Tools from the Start menu or All Programs:

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Figure 2: Configure the Windows 7 Start menu to easily access Administrative Tools.

Figure 3 shows how Administrative Tools appear on the Start menu and All Programs when you select the option shown in Figure 2.

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Figure 3: Launch Administrative Tools from the All Programs menu or Start menu

Components are retained from Windows XP and Windows Vista

Administrative tools in Windows 7 already exist in the predecessors:

The interfaces used by these tools basically don't change from Windows XP and Windows Vista, so we won't cover them in detail in this article.

New points in Administrative Tools for Windows XP users

Windows XP users will see a lot of new and advanced features in Administrative Tools of Windows 7 such as:

Note: Most of these features are advanced or introduced in Windows Vista, they are completely new or improved compared to Windows XP.

Event Viewer

The Event Viewer provides a shortcut for users to access the Event Viewer of Computer Management, previously a part of Administrative Tools from Windows XP, a version of Windows 7 (a Windows Vista-based version) that provides a delivery It looks much better than Windows XP and provides a much more detailed view of your system.

The Event Viewer of Windows 7 (Figure 4) consists of three panels below:

More details about the system with Event Viewer

When you launch the Event Viewer, its center panel displays an overview of your system. Summary of Summary of Administrative Events will display statistics on successful errors, warnings, information, and events by week, day, and hour.

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Figure 4: Open Event Viewer

Click the plus sign (+) next to an item to see the events for that item. Double-click an event, this event will be opened in the middle pane.

When opening an event, the right panel will provide additional options for the event, including the ability to attach a task to the event, such as sending an email when another event of the same type occurs. out - a serious error.

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Figure 5: Viewing action options for an error event.

Review Windows records

Open the Windows Logs folder, you can view log entries for applications, security events, settings, systems, or forwarded events.

Here are some examples of how to use these records:

Applications and Services logs

Windows 7, like Windows Vista, puts Applications and Services logs into the user's directory in Event Viewer. Media Center, Windows PowerShell, and Microsoft Windows all have their own records as well as hardware events, Internet Explorer, Key Management Services, Windows Backup, and other Windows utilities.

By opening the Backup / Operational log, you can see the status of recent backup jobs. Open the version for a feature of Windows 7 ( Microsoft> Windows> featurename ) you can see when a feature is used or the most recently reported issues (Figure 6).

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Figure 6: Viewing errors reported by Windows Backup

Performance test set

The Performance Monitor version of Windows uses graphics to test system performance like other versions. It also provides additional resources to help users see what is happening in their system.

When you open the Performance Monitor, the program will display an overview with a Performance Monitor link (for real-time information) and ways to start testing performance (Figure 7).

The Panel System Summary below the overview provides information about memory, network interface, processor utilization and physical disk performance.

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Figure 7: Launch the performance checker

Click the Performance Monitor link shown in Figure 7 to open the Performance Monitor graphic. By default, Windows 7 will display graphically as a percentage.

To add other counters, click the blue plus sign ( + ) and select the counters from the Add Counters window. Use Ctrl-Click or Shift-Click to select multiple counters; then click Add to add the selected counters.

Click OK to return to Performance Monitor and see the graphical display (Figure 8). To remove the counter, remove the check mark next to the counter you need to remove.

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Figure 8: Graphic display of performance coefficients using Performance Monitor

Performance Monitor also provides a way for you to diagnose the system. Open Reports> System> System Diagnostics to see the latest system diagnostics reports (Figure 9).

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Figure 9: Part of the System Diagnostic system diagnostic report

By default, System Diagnostic will expand the diagnostic results (warnings, information, basic system tests) and the Performance section gives you quick information about the system condition.

Other sections (Software Configuration, Hardware Configuration, CPU, Network, Disk, Memory, and Report Statistics) can be expanded if desired.

Note: If you used the Performance Monitor and Reliability Monitor in Windows Vista, you might be a little puzzled about the Reliability Monitor feature.

In Windows 7, Reliability Monitor is set in Action Center. To see, you can open the Maintenance Action Center section and click View Reliability History.

Print management

Windows Vista has Print Management (and this feature is included in Administrative Tools), as is Windows 7.

Using Print Management (Figure 10) you can see the positive status of printers, form settings, the currently used printer ports, drivers for network and internal printers.

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Figure 10: Print management interface

System configuration

Configuring the System Configuration system allows users to temporarily or permanently change how their Windows system starts. By setting System Configuration (MSConfig.exe) to Administrative Tools folder, Windows 7 has made this program much easier to use than Windows XP, in Windows XP it must be run from Run. However beyond that is not all that difference of this feature in Windows 7.

The General tab continues to be used for diagnostics (basic devices and services) or selective startups but other tabs have been removed or have been changed.

System Configuration of Windows 7 does not have System.ini, Win.ini and Boot.ini tabs. The Boot.ini tab is now replaced with the Boot tab to manage startups and boot order.

The Startup tab, as before, allows users to manage startup programs. However, it can now check when you disable a certain entry, so it is easier to determine the impact on the system when changing startup components (Figure 11).

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Figure 11: The Startup tab can now check when a certain program is disabled.

Significant changes are the Tools menu, which includes shortcuts to completely different tools than Windows XP (the * indicates new or enhanced features in Windows 7 versus Windows XP):

As shown in the list above, you can use System Configuration as a destination that contains all the needs for computer management.

Task Scheduler

Windows XP has Scheduled Tasks, Task Scheduler is also included in Windows 7, but this tool has been greatly improved. Based on Windows Vista's Task Scheduler, Task Scheduler in Windows 7 (Figure 12) includes a library of installed Windows and third-party applications that can be scheduled to run at times. different.

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Figure 12: Task Scheduler is used to run Windows Defender automatically

Task Scheduler of Windows 7 uses a tabbed interface to specify general and security settings, when tasks run (Triggers), what tasks to perform (Actions), conditions needed to exist (Conditions ), how the task works (Settings), and information about the previous task (History).

Note: The History tab is set to Disabled by default. To enable history logging, select Enable All Tasks History from the Actions menu in the right pane.

To set up a new scheduled task, you can use the wizard to create a task, as in Windows XP. To start, select Create Basic Task from the Actions menu. Or you can use the tab interface to set up a new scheduled task, then choose Create Task instead.

Diagnose the memory of Windows

Windows Vista introduced a memory diagnostic tool (previously available through Windows analyzing Microsoft's online crash) as part of Windows, Windows 7 also followed the steps that Windows Vista has perform.

Because the memory diagnostics tool checks the system's standard and RAM memory before Windows appears, the user will be prompted to choose when to run the program: probably right now (startup required re-system) or at a later time when the system is launched.

When the memory diagnostic tool works, it displays a simple blue screen with white and yellow text. A status bar will display the progress of the selected test processes (Figure 13).

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Figure 13: Test system memory using the Memory Diagnostic tool (Windows Memory Diagnostic)

To change the test number (default is 2), you can choose a mixed test case, or enable or disable the memory cache, press F1 and select from the options shown (see Figure 14).

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Figure 14: See the test options in Windows Memory Diagnostic

If Windows Memory Diagnostic detects any problems, it will display the results after Windows starts.

Special administration tools

Most software tools in Administrative Tools are widely used for advanced users, but there are tools used for special purposes:

We will introduce in the sections below.

Windows Firewall with advanced security features

Windows XP has an integrated firewall, which is also designed to only prevent unauthorized incoming traffic. However, in Windows Vista version, Windows Firewall has the ability to configure the firewall to prevent unauthorized traffic, and Windows 7's Windows Firewall also has that feature.

To enable Windows Firewall to operate in two-way mode, you must start Windows Firewall from the Administrative Tools shortcut ("Windows Firewall with Advanced Security - Advanced Security") and configure or create rules for traffic. send. To create rules, you must follow these steps:

As you can see from this brief overview, using Windows Firewall in two-way (Advanced Security) mode is not the best option for individual users or small businesses. Users of this type are better off using firewalls that can set rules for programs that send in a certain facility.

However, if you work with an enterprise network that uses Windows Vista and Windows 7 computers, you will certainly like to standardize rules if possible with Windows Firewall with advanced security features - Advanced Security.

ISCSI indicator set

The iSCSI indicator allows Windows computers to access iSCSI devices on the storage network (SAN). If your network does not have San features or does not use iSCSI storage, you do not need to use this feature.

The iSCSI indicator is introduced in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

PowerShell modules

Windows PowerShell is a command line environment based on .NET technology that is strong in scripting and system administration in Windows. This technology was introduced in Windows Server 2008 and also in Windows 7. It was also added to recent versions of Windows via download.

PowerShell modules allow developers to create reusable program code blocks. Windows 7 includes the following PowerShell modules:

Conclude

Can say Administrative Tools of Windows 7 provides quite a lot of features. With improvements made to the tool compared to what it has in Windows XP, Windows users will now see a lot of favorite and powerful tools that are easier to use than ever.