Have you ever needed to know how much memory your computer has? Or what kind of video card you have for that new game you just bought?
Windows XP
Right-click on My Computer (located either on the Desktop or the Start Menu) and click Properties, you'll get all kinds of valuable information about your computer. Such as, what version of the Windows XP you have, how much memory the computer has and what kind of processor it contains. Many retail computers will also have the brand logo and a Support Information button you can use to get support information.
Another tab at the top of the box is "Hardware." In this tab, Device Manager contains a list of all hardware in your computer, broken up by categories. If a particular device has a problem, it will have a yellow exclamation point next to it, indicating the hardware is conflicting with something or has not been properly installed.
The "Hardware Profiles" tab is useful for portable computers that have docked and undocked configurations. And lastly, the Advanced tab gives you an overview of available memory and system performance options.
There are other tabs in System Properties, depending on your version of Windows.
Windows Vista
Right-click Computer (located either on the Orb Menu or the Desktop) and click Properties. Here you get a much different screen than any previous version of Windows has offered in the past, but you can view similar information, such as Processor, RAM, Vista version, and a new feature that rates your PC's performance on a 1.0 to 5.9 scale.
To view the details of the system's hardware you'll need to click on Device Manager in the upper left corner of the window. It operates nearly identically to Device Manager in XP with no notable exceptions.
