Running Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional

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Chapter 24

Many people feel that one of the greatest weaknesses of Microsoft Windows NT, the predecessor to Windows 2000, was its lack of hardware support. Only a limited number of devices was supported, which meant that you had to be very selective when you bought peripheral devices for a system running Windows NT. Support for new devices was often slow in coming, and support for some types of devices and from some manufacturers was nonexistent.

Furthermore, Windows NT didn't support Plug and Play, a technology first employed in Windows 95 that—with the right combination of hardware and software components—allowed you to simply connect a device and begin using it. Instead, once you found a device that was "supported" by Windows NT, you then faced the often-daunting task of configuring it properly.

Windows 2000 dramatically improves upon Windows NT in three key areas of hardware support:

This chapter explains how Plug and Play makes life easier and then offers some specific information about installing and configuring certain types of devices, including printers, modems, scanners, cameras, and game controllers.

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