Windows 7 Walkthrough: System and Security Control Panel
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Windows 7 Walkthrough: System and Security Control Panel
Windows 7 Walkthrough: System and Security Control Panel
Windows 7’s Control Panel is literally packed with tools (a.k.a. applets) that allow you to configure and control the way that the operating system works. Because the Control Panel has so many tools, Microsoft added a Search box to make it easy for you to find the tool that you need for a particular task.
To help you become familiar with all of the tools that are available in Windows 7’s Control Panel, I have created the Windows 7 Walkthrough series in which I’ll show you and provide a brief overview of each tool in the Control Panel categories. The first one covers the tools in the System and Security Control Panel category.
Keep in mind that I’ll be using the Ultimate edition of Windows 7, which contains some features not available in other editions of the operating system.
System and Security
System and Security
When you open the System and Security category you’ll see that there are 8 tools in this category.
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Action Center - Security
Action Center - Security
The Security section contains status information about the Firewall, Windows Update, Virus protection, Spyware protection, Internet Security Settings, User Account Control, and Network Access Protection (NAP).
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Action Center - Maintenance
Action Center - Maintenance
The Maintenance section contains status information about problems reports, Windows Backup, Windows Update and the Troubleshooting features.
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Recovery
Recovery
From within the Action Center, you can access the System Restore feature. Click the Open System Restore button to launch the System Restore wizard.
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Advanced Recovery Methods
Advanced Recovery Methods
From within the Recovery window, you can access Advanced Recovery Methods, which allows you to either use a disk image to restore your system or to the reinstall Windows.
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Change Action Center Settings
Change Action Center Settings
Back in the Action Center, you can access the Change Action Center Settings and you can turn messages on or off and change how solutions to problems appear.
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View Archived Messages
View Archived Messages
From within the Action Center, you can access the Archived Messages window. If you have used the problem reporting feature to report problems to Microsoft, those messages will appear in the Archive Messages window.
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View Performance Information
View Performance Information
From within the Action Center, you can access and view Performance Information, which highlights your system’s Window Experience Index rating.
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Adjust Visual Effects
Adjust Visual Effects
From within Performance Information, you can access the Performance Options dialog box where you can adjust performance by changing a multitude of appearance settings. (You can also adjust processor resources and virtual memory on the Advanced tab and change Data Execution Prevention settings.)
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Adjust Indexing Options
Adjust Indexing Options
From within Performance Information, you can access the Indexing Options dialog box where you can customize the Windows search index to improve the efficiency of searches.
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Open Disk Cleanup
Open Disk Cleanup
From within Performance Information, you can launch the Disk Cleanup utility.
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Advanced Tools
Advanced Tools
From within Performance Information, you can open Advanced Tools and access a whole slew of utilities too numerous to cover here. While most of these utilities are carryovers from previous versions of Windows, some have new features which I’ll discuss in future articles.
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Allow Programs to communicate through the Windows Firewall
Allow Programs to communicate through the Windows Firewall
From within the Windows Firewall tool, you can allow or disallow programs from sending information to or from your computer through the firewall.
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Change Notification Settings / Turn Windows Firewall on or off
Change Notification Settings / Turn Windows Firewall on or off
From within the Windows Firewall tool, you can block all incoming connections, change the notification setting or disable the firewall.
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Restore Defaults
Restore Defaults
If after you make changes to the Windows Firewall settings you decide against them, you can easily restore all the settings to their default values.
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System
System
Back in the System and Security window, you can access the familiar System window, which is essentially a one stop resource for indentifying your Windows 7 edition, hardware, network, and product ID.
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System Protection
System Protection
From within the System window, you can access the System Protection tab of the System Properties dialog box and configure System Restore.
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Advanced System Settings
Advanced System Settings
From within the System window, you can access the Advanced tab of the System Properties dialog box and configure Performance, User Profile and Startup and Recovery settings. The settings on this tab are similar to those in the Advanced tab in Windows XP.
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Check for Updates
Check for Updates
From within the Windows Update tool, you can manually check for new updates anytime that you want.
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Change Settings
Change Settings
From within the Windows Update tool, you can configure when and how you want updates to occur.
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View Update History
View Update History
From within the Windows Update tool, you can take a look at all the updates that have been installed on your system and you can see when they were installed.
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Restore Hidden Updates
Restore Hidden Updates
From within the Windows Update tool, you can restore hidden updates, which are updates you’ve asked Windows not to install or notify you about.
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Choose what the power button does / Require a password on wakeup
Choose what the power button does / Require a password on wakeup
From within the Power Options window, you can configure how the power button works as well as specify that a password be required when you wake up your computer.
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Create a power plan
Create a power plan
From within the Power Options window, you can define a power plan by choosing options from a collection of hardware and system settings that manage how your computer uses power.
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Choose when to turn off the display / Choose when the computer sleeps
Choose when to turn off the display / Choose when the computer sleeps
Rather than configuring an entire plan, you can just choose when to turn off the display and when the computer sleeps.
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Advanced Power Settings
Advanced Power Settings
In addition to choosing when to turn off the display and when the computer sleeps, you can access the Advanced Settings dialog box and further customize the current power plan.
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Create a system image
Create a system image
From within the Backup and Restore window, you can create a system image, which is an exact copy of a drive.
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Create a system repair disk
Create a system repair disk
From within the Backup and Restore window, you can create a repair disk, which is a bootable CD/DVD that contains the Windows System Recovery Tools.
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System and Security Walkthrough Map
System and Security Walkthrough Map
This tree diagram presents a map of the System and Security walkthrough.
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