1. Windows Device Driver Overview
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Part of the Windows 10 story is the fact that you can use Windows 10 on a variety of different devices. So in this section, we are going to look at the different form factors that are supported by Windows 10 as well as a lot of the changes in regards to hardware, I mean, hardware is always changing right. So Windows 10 supports the latest in terms of like USB, Miracast, AllJoyn those types of technologies. The other thing we are going to talk about is disk and storage support and printing. So let's have a look at those things.
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Form factors have to deal with the hardware device, its size, and its different components. And the thing with Windows 10 is it supports a lot of different form factors. So what I want to do in this and next section is take a tour of the different form factors, the different types of devices that Windows 10 supports. Now part of the Windows 10 story is the fact that they developed it to run in a wide range of devices. And we're not just talking about the PC here anymore. We're talking about headsets and we're talking about big conference room devices – the size of the big screen TV. And the real wizard behind the curtain here is the refactored kernel, which they call One Windows. You see, prior to 2011 there were multiple Windows. There was one for the phone, one for the PC, one for the Xbox. But now this One Windows monitor means that Microsoft has actually evolved the Windows platform, converged the code base, and they have created a common foundation for all these different types of devices. Now that doesn't mean that each of these devices are running the same experience. They will have unique experience. Windows 10 on the phone provides a different experience than you are going to get on Windows 10 on the Surface Hub – the big screen device or the holographic glasses. Nevertheless, now nevertheless, what it does mean is that all of these devices share a common-core operating system. It also means they share a common application platform and they also share a common store. So you can install an application on the Surface or install an application on the tablet. And that application is available on the other Windows 10 devices as well.
Now the first device I want to look at is the Windows Surface. And this isn't a sales pitch. All I am doing at this point is demonstrating the different types of devices that Windows 10 can run on. You see the Windows Surface is a two in one – a convertible type of device. It's not a laptop. It's not a PC in the traditional sense. It breaks some of those rules because you're actually able to remove the top portion here – the computing part, and separate it from the keyboard. So you have a convertible. You have it where it can turn into a tablet and then you can also have it behave more like a laptop. Now there are lots of other manufacturers who make these convertibles or these two in ones. Me, personally, I own a couple of Yogas and I love them. And that allows me to like flip the screen around and do a very similar kind of a change, where I am using the device in a different way. And then Dell has some and HP has some and other manufacturers have also some unique devices. What is exciting about this is that Windows 10 has enabled us to go beyond just the traditional PC or a laptop. In the past we just had two choices – a desktop or a laptop. But now we have this whole new environment where Windows 10 can run on a desktop, a laptop. But also can run on these convertible devices and can also run on even smaller form factors like tablets. Because of that, I am able to actually use my Windows 10 device in a variety of places, in a variety of different functions. And the Windows Surface is a great example of that. It's an elegant device with a lot of neat features like the kickstand and detachable keyboard. There are no screws on the outside of it and it's manufactured by Microsoft. But it's only one example – the different classes of devices the Windows, you know, 10 can run on.
Now here's another device that you can run Windows 10 on and that's on the phone. And Microsoft has their own phone that they've also manufactured like the Surface. And the phone of course gives you a unique experience. You're able to access your Microsoft applications, your OneDrive, and do your skyping, all from within your phone. Now the phone has kind of a mixed response as far as a marketplace is concerned. The Windows phone certainly is not a leader and not necessarily a very popular device, because there is a lot of competition with Androids and iPhones. Nevertheless, Windows phone plays an important role for those organizations who have adopted it. And a lot of companies use the Windows phone as their primary device that they issue to employees. And I for one also have a Windows phone. I actually love it. It's got a great camera on it and it works really well for me. One of the things I want to point out here is that whether you're using a Windows phone precisely or if you're using an Android or iPhone, one of the things that Microsoft is enabling is the ability to access your applications – corporate applications, or personal applications, and do that from a smartphone. So any type of device in fact not just a Windows phone. So I can have an Android or I can have an iPhone. And I can access Office. I can access, you know, corporate applications. In fact, you can even run Cortana on these other types of devices. So Microsoft is recognizing and enabling access to these Microsoft-based solutions. But doing that from a variety of different form factors, not just Windows phones but other phones as well.
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Now this is exciting. These are some of the most exciting form factors because they are really, really new. One of the things that's exciting here is that we have available to us new experiences because of this new hardware. And one of the things I want to talk about is how Windows 10 is changing the way we do computing. Let's take this first one here. These holographic glasses as an example. Now these holographic glasses are very, very powerful. In that, what they're doing is they're augmenting reality and allowing for some really unique collaborative type of work. Now, what that means is, it's a headset that's running Windows 10 and it projects in these holograms. But it's not virtual reality, it's not virtual glasses, it's augmented reality. At least that's what they call it because you're projecting these holograms into your existing reality. And what is exciting is the potential of other individuals sharing the same holographic information with you and collaborating. So, for instance, in medicine the ability to share information about a virtual cadaver and being able to learn about human anatomy. The ability to use these holographic glasses to collaborate over various manufacturing projects. NASA is using this in order to collaborate over various research projects as well. So holographic glasses have actually opened up some really new, exciting computing experiences. And because it runs Windows 10, that means a lot of kind of everyday Windows 10 PC applications can also be adapted and adopted to run in the holographic environment. For even, you know, some new kind of encounters and some new kind of productivity situations.
Now we also have this guy down here – this is the Internet of Things. And this is another growing, emerging area that Windows 10 is participating in. And that's a whole home automation, gadgets, appliances, devices, weather stations, scientific types of devices, robotics. There is a whole class of these devices that can run basic operating systems and that do special functions. And those special functions can range from manufacturing to science, to just kind of some home fun projects, learning projects. Or they can be very practical and implemented into various real world type of scenarios – energy collection, telemetry, medicine – those types of things. So Windows 10 can actually run on these form factors. Now you work with them very differently. You're not interacting with the operating system with a graphical desktop like you would in PC or like you would in Surface. But it does run the Windows 10 Core. And it does support Windows 10 applications. Now over here we've got this guy and this is the Surface Hub. And the Surface Hub is changing the conference room experience.
Now, the idea here is, if you go into a conference room, how many times you have looked around for cables. And then you had to clean the whiteboard from the person who is there behind you. Well, the Surface Hub is essentially a Windows 10, running in a large, very large form factor, supports multipoint touch, and supports Windows 10 applications. So you've got conference room collaboration. You have the ability to do this or use it in the classroom for training and for education. And you also have the fact that it's really easy to connect to and set up. And so I love the aspect of not having to shuffle around and find those cables. But being able to jump right into the meaning and acquire my connection or make my Skype call. And do that in the conference room as quickly as possible. So each one of these form factors, in many ways, exceed what we were doing back in the 80s, 90s, and the early 2000s with the PC. And it's really the next evolution of what computing can do for us, where computing is not just something that sits on our desk and can work with spreadsheets. But it's really changing our lives. And it's allowing us to do some really exciting things, whether it's for learning, whether it's for health, whether it's for making things. What have you been computing? This is just, you know, a really exciting age to live in.
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So hey, let's have a look now at Windows 10's hardware support. Now Windows 10 – like the PC in the past – supports a lot of your classic PC hardware. We've got AMD and Intel support, we've got hard drive support, and we've got – you know – variety of bit different memory technologies. But, with Windows 10, we also have support for ARM processors and mobile processors. We also have support for SIM cards. And look at this, we've got support for mobile broadband in terms of our networking. Another interesting improvement in the Windows 10 hardware technology category is this extension here in terms of memory support. So this just enables Windows 10 to support much larger types of functions for larger devices. And that's a 128 terabyte virtual address space. Now technically, this was introduced in Windows 8.1, but Windows 10 inherits this. And it really postures Windows to be able to do some really heavy-duty computing if it needs to.
[Heading: Feature Requirements. Classic computer hardware includes Intel, Qualcomm, ARM, and NVIDIA.]
Now here is kind of a scan or a tour of the different kinds of hardware technologies that Windows 10 supports. And as you can see here, we've got good, old-fashioned multimonitor support. But Windows 10 improves the multiple monitor experience. And so you can actually refresh, you know, one monitor without affecting both monitors. They can function at different resolutions. And we've got improved graphical processing with DirectX 12. We also have a wide amount of support for different types of printers. We've got new devices, which we described earlier in terms of IoT and holographic support. We also have USB 3.1. This is a new iteration of USB. It's faster. It's got a new type of connector that it can also work with. In Windows 10, it's got support for that. Multiple input devices. Now I love touch. I absolutely love touch and I won't buy device that doesn't have touch unless, of course, it's a desktop device. But, even then, the cost of touch screen in that technology is coming down. Windows 10 supports multiple input devices including touch, also supports pen input, and we've got Xbox controller support here. So you can actually interact with Windows 10 using a game controller. And there might be some worthy business applications where that becomes important – of course, games too, right.
[Heading: More Hardware Technologies. Windows 10 enables new experiences by taking advantage of the latest in hardware standards while still considering compatibility.]
Now over here, universal apps or devices. What this is in reference to is a fact that you also have a class of application that can be...well, they're device applications. So what this simply means is that universal apps that can be designed specifically for these different types of applications and so Microsoft has APIs and a model in place in Windows 10 to support manufacturers who are designing the universal app, specifically for the printer. So for instance, you can actually download and install universal app for a Cannon printer. And therefore you can interact with it using the benefits of the universal application model. And that brings us up here to AllJoyn and proximity devices and there is a variety of different technologies here including NFC. AllJoyn is an interesting technology in and of itself. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that here in a moment.
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Now AllJoyn is not a Microsoft innovation. It's an open source standard that has to do with the ability to communicate with a variety of different devices. And it really kind of grew up out of the home automation craze. And so think of it this way, think of as AllJoyn is being like a motion sensor light bulb that is connected to a motion sensor. So when there is no motion, the light bulb automatically turns off or vice versa. And so this home automation configuration and the communication between these devices has standardized support for technology called AllJoyn. And Windows 10 can participate in this network. So you might have like an alarm system. And you might have Windows 10 be able to run an application that automatically turns on a camera in response to the motion sensor or in response to the silent alarm. Whatever the application might mean or do for you, point of this slide is to tell you that, "Hey, Windows 10 has AllJoyn support." So, if you got AllJoyn devices or an AllJoyn network, Windows 10 has applications and application support for that kind of configuration.
Now here are some other enhancements. Windows 10 support USB 3.1. Now this is expected to become very popular. And USB, of course, is probably the most popular serial connection available to PC. So there's been many others that have come along and tried to supplant it, but haven't quite been successful. Here with 3.1 we have improvements. As far as speeds are concerned, we have support for different types of connectors – both an old connector and a new connector. And I think this one right here is kind of an interesting point, this whole dual role. That is where in the past, PCs are kind of dedicated to just being the host where they always initiate the data transfer or they might provide some power. Well, that role can actually switch. So, instead of your phone always being the down or I should say upstream device, it can actually be plugged into a docking station. And it can be the device that's actually running as a host and it might actually be providing power. So you've got this ability to actually flip the roles that are typically associated with a USB connection. So either device running Windows 10 can function in either one of those roles.
[Heading: New Connections: USB 3.1 and Windows 10. Windows 10 supports USB 3.1. This is expected to become the industry standard. Windows 10 has multiple connectors including legacy and new Type-C. Dual role means that the device can be either USB host or USB device. The USB host initiates data transfer. It might provide power. USB device responds to Host. It consumes power.]
So here's a look at the new USB Type-C connector. There are a couple of noteworthy points I want to make. First off, you've got really high speed data transfer, but it's not just the speed, it's also the type of data. You see, with the Type-C connector and USB 3.1 you not only can just move regular files between devices, but you can also connect it to a display and it supports video and audio. It also supports power signals in fact to 100 watts. So that means you're actually able to power or charge a laptop or connect it to a portable hard drive and has enough power to run those additional devices. And one of my favorite features of this is the flippable and reversible nature of the Type-C connector. No more of this going on and no more Type-A, mini, micro B type of connectors. This really is meant to be the connector to end all connectors. We'll see if that's the case and that proves out to be true. But you can tell it's already got a great deal of functionality available to it. And a lot of devices have USB Type-C connectors now. Here we've got an example, where you might use the Type-C and 3.1 with Windows 10. The fact that you can even use it to connect a phone to an external monitor. You also have multiple input type of devices. And then the various charging scenarios that can take advantage of the Type-C in 100 watts of power.
[Heading: New Connections: USB Type-C Connector. The USB Type-C Connector is an alternate mode for data transfer of non-USB protocols.]
Now that brings us to another kind of technology that Windows 10 supports that's proximity technologies. With proximity technologies, we're talking about using Near Field Communication bringing two devices within proximity of each other and doing a data transfer. So I have been able to do this with my Windows devices, my Windows phones. My wife has a Windows phone, I have one, and we're able to exchange pictures this way. We just take the two phones and we pair them and just kind of tap them together. And we're able to actually share files that way. So we tap to pair – that initiates the actual Wi-Fi protected setup. And this is great because you can use this in a variety of scenarios not just sharing pictures, but also possibly making payments. If you've got a near field communicated supported point-of-sale device, this allows you to use your phone as a way of making purchases.
Now here's another technology around Windows 8 and Windows 10. And that's the improved sensor support. And this is something that Microsoft put a lot of effort into, when Windows 8 came out. And that is with your Windows 8 devices, you've got different types of sensors and this could be an accelerometer, it could be a compass, it could be a GPS. So you've got these different types of sensors in there. Now what they did in Windows 8 is – they actually took the different components or the different sensors and fused them together. And are able to actually share that fused or comprehensive amount of data to an application. Because they discovered, if they only shared a little bit of the sensor data and if they shared them separately, that often meant that the application was kind of compensate all the time. And so they did some demonstrations where, if we were relying only on one or two inputs, you would have a very different kind of behavior. And it's not as full of kind of understanding of the environment or the world by using or relying on just a single set of sensors.
So Microsoft has this idea called sensor fusion. And that means – it takes multiple sensor inputs and provides that information to an application, which can take advantage of all of that. And so it's not just about knowing just the YAW. It's also knowing about the PITCH and also the ROLL. And together that gives a better responsive rate. So things like – being able to tip your tablet and have it auto rotate for you. Well, that kind of quick fluid motion is a result of Microsoft's sensor fusion technology. Now, in Windows 10, we go the next step and we have some additional sensors available to us. These sensors are not just limited to some, you know, physics around the device, but they also include things like biometrics, various health sensors that are supported, motion sensors, and then environmental sensors. And some of these additional sensors are really geared more towards the Internet of things. So, using Windows 10 as the operating system for a weather station or using Windows 10 as the operating system for a medical device. And so these additional sensors add to what they've already developed in Windows 8 – to create a more intelligent platform and do some more exciting things with applications. A lot of space there for innovation and a lot of space there for using Windows 10 on a lot of different devices.
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Now I want to talk a little bit about Windows 10 display technology and the support behind graphics. Now the graphics stack in Windows 10 has really seen some big changes. Microsoft actually says, it's the biggest changes they have made to the graphic stack since 2008. Now keep in mind, you know, operating systems since that time have also experienced some change, like Windows 7 and 8. Each one of them has their own improvements. Like, for instance, Windows 8 improved the power management for the display. Windows 8.1, well, that introduced Miracast support and has its own performance improvements on top of that. Now Windows 10 takes advantage of all of those previous improvements to the graphics stack. But, on top of that, it brings its own set of new features. And that's why the driver stack in Windows 10 is, well, WDDM 2.0 and not just WDDM 1.4. So it actually would go up an entire level there.
Now let's talk a little bit about these enhancements. In terms of GPU enhancements, Windows 10 targets high-end graphics for games. And so we have DirectX 12 and WDDM 2 and that's meant to really make a much smarter graphics engine. And so there are a lot of features in the graphic stack that's intended to prevent waste and really improve performance. Now just one example of that, Microsoft did some work to prevent, you know, the background apps from starving foreground apps of resources. So, if you're playing a game and you have a foreground app there, you don't want something run in the background interfering with that. There are also improvements in terms of the actual quality of the display. And Miracast support has been improved. And I'm seeing it because I use Miracast with Windows 10 and Windows 8. And it works much better in Windows 10. Now another component that they've improved in Windows 10 is called the Desktop Windows Manager – and that's usually responsible for scaling. In the past, if you added another monitor or changed the display settings, every screen, all the monitors would go black. And then the resolution would apply. Now they have improved the Desktop Windows Manager. And now it has faster monitor connections and those connections only affect the new monitor. So, if you add a third monitor, then it's going to go black and it will reset and apply its resolution. But those display settings are not affecting the other monitors.
In addition to that, speaking of multiple monitors, the cloning feature has also improved. So, if I have a laptop and I take it to a conference room, and I am cloning it on to the projector or on to the big screen, Windows 8 would actually use the lowest common denominator between the two different devices. Windows 10 actually takes a different approach. And it actually seeks to retain the highest quality possible for both the internal and external displays. So these enhancements, both multi monitor, the performance enhancements, and changes to the underlying graphics stack translate to just a better looking screen when you're using Windows 10.
Alright, another important technology that's in Windows 10 is Microsoft Casting. And this is one that I really enjoy using. This is called Miracast with Wi-Fi Direct support. And what this allows me to do – it allows me to take a small device, like say, for instance, this device where I am actually able to take maybe my phone and project the desktop or screen on to a large screen television. Now the difference between this and, say, other kinds of casting technologies that are out there is – this is not limited to a specific application. I am actually able to project the entire desktop up on to the big screen. And Windows 10 has support for this. Now there are some other things you should be aware of in regards to the support. It's got 1920 x 1200 supports at 60 frames per second. So we're talking about, you know, HD support. It also supports casting the sounds. So you're not requiring another connection for that. So it's great for showing movies for fun. It's great for doing demonstrations of your desktop. And for, you know, viewing even game with friends that you're playing there on your tablet or on your smartphone. And sharing that with everybody there on the big screen. So there are a lot of applications for this, whether a personal application or professional. So you wanted to share an application or do some training. Well, with Miracast you can do that in a conference room and show and cast everybody what is happening on even the small device like a phone.
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So Windows 10 has a lot of support for hardware technologies – both emerging technologies, new technologies as well as compatibility for older technologies. Let's talk now about configuring those devices in Windows 10. So the first question we want to ask ourselves is, "Well, how do I configure those devices in Windows 10?" And, in many ways, you're going to actually configure those devices the same way that you configured devices in the past. That as you are going to use things like Control Panel, Device Manager. There is also ways of configuring devices using the new Settings application. It depends, of course, on what you're trying to configure and the specific hardware that you're working with. Another way that you can actually configure your devices is through Group Policy. There are several Group Policy settings that relate to the installation of those devices and the function of those devices. And, if you're not familiar with Group Policy, a Group Policy is a set of settings, policies that can be distributed to your Windows 10 devices to restrict or control its behavior. And there is a batch of settings that relate to hardware and hardware installation. You can distribute these policies either via an Active Directory domain controller in a corporate environment or you can configure them locally. There is also the potential to control and configure other aspects of your Windows 10 devices using other types of policy engines or policy software – perhaps MDM or third-party devices. Nevertheless, built into Windows 10, we've got Control Panel, we've got a Local Policy Editor – both of which allow me to control hardware on the local device.
[Group Policy contains numerous devices and drive policies. A screen grab of the "Local Group Policy Editor" window is displayed. Running along the top of the window is the menu including the "File" menu. Below the menu bar is a tool bar including the "Filter" tool icon. The window is divided into two parts. On the left-hand side, a navigation pane is present consisting of various nodes and subnodes. On the right-hand side, the display pane is present that displays the content of a selected node or subnode.]
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So let's have a look at Windows device driver, shall we? First question is what is a Windows device driver? Well, I'm glad you asked. Windows device drivers are an important part of the Windows operating system because they are what we're going to use in order to communicate to those physical devices that we all love. So, if you've got a photo application, right, it's going to want to use and have access to the camera. And you're going to want to be able to hear your music through the speakers. And so a device driver provides that interactivity with the application and Windows and that physical hardware itself. Now the way that a device driver actually works is there is a layer of software called the DDI or Device Driver Interface. Now I think a good way to understand this is to first off talk about what an API is. An API – another acronym here – stands for application programming interface. Anytime you hear the word interface, it means to go between two different sites. Interface – inter meaning between, face meaning site. So who are we communicating between here? Well, we've got applications up here and we have Windows down here. And so Microsoft developed this layer of software called APIs that facilitate the communication of applications running on Windows. Same could be said about the DDI down here. Only this time, we're referring to the communication between Windows and the hardware.
So, when a specific application up here wants to interact with hardware down here, Windows facilitates that by calling functions inside the driver. And it does that through this layer of software called DDI. The manufacturer provides the device and creates a driver according to the DDI standards and Windows driver standards. And the Windows is then able to communicate it because we have this layer of interface software, this communication between them. I think a good illustration of where this DDI comes into place and how the driver works is...I actually think about a vehicle, an automobile, for instance. And I'm sitting in my car, I am not actually communicating directly with the engine or the electronics, instead I have an interface. I have the steering wheel, right. I have the dashboard. And so we've got kind of a universal standard. In America, the steering wheel is always on the left-hand side with gas paddles always on the far right on the floor. If manufacturers decide to kind of invent unique interfaces for each vehicle that they create, well, that will create a lot of confusion and a lot of challenges, maybe a lot of car wrecks. So the same thing we have here. Windows has created these interface layers and one down here called the DDI to standardize the relationship between the different types of hardware that's manufactured and their operating system here. The benefit is you and I, we're actually able to purchase a wide set of devices that will run on Windows including – you know – a wide set of cameras for our photo apps.
So where do drivers live exactly in Windows? Well, this is interesting. In Windows XP, drivers could live in a handful of different places. Well, they actually standardize this – starting in Windows Vista. And it's also true here with Windows 10. There is a dedicated folder called the DriverStore. So this is a centralized location where drivers can be actually deposited or stored and even staged for installation. Now Windows has a lot of built-in drivers that are added during installation. If it detects certain types of hardware, it will identify hardware. But drivers can also be located online in Windows Update. So, if you add a new device and the driver is not available locally, then it will download it and install that driver into the DriverStore. Now one of the things you should be aware of is there are architectural limitations – 32-bit drivers are not going to work on 64-bit versions of Windows and vice versa. And the final thing I want to point out is this last point right down here and that is drivers need to be digitally signed.
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Now the next thing I want to talk to you about is driver signing. What exactly is driver signing? Driver signing is all about ensuring that the driver I am installing can be trusted. That's what driver signing does for me. You see, there are a couple of concerns I have. Drivers play a really privileged role. They are down there – right next to the hardware, right there next to Windows. And I want to ensure that those drivers are going to function as expected because what is at risk is stability or compatibility. Now it depends on the driver. Some drivers are what they call user-mode drivers and they run above the kernel. And some are what they call kernel-mode drivers and they run and provide services to the kernel. Those kernel-mode drivers I am especially concerned with being compatible and being stable and being worthy to support Windows. Now Microsoft is also concerned about that for your sake. And so what they have is a safeguard called driver signing. What that simply means is those drivers from those manufacturers can be tested by Microsoft's Quality Labs and then Microsoft would digitally sign them. And so now you've got kind of a digital seal of approval and a validation that that driver actually will run on Windows.
This is much better compared to a period of time in the past where drivers could be created by anybody and you were not confident, in fact, of where that driver may have even come from. It could just be someone saying, "Hey, I have improved this driver. Here's a copy of it. And it proves out to be something that's not very stable or reliable." Well, by requiring them to go through the Hardware Quality Labs and be digitally signed or at least requiring them to be digitally signed by a trusted source, like the manufacturer, you have an additional level of confidence in that driver. It also is useful if we're concerned about malware. You see, if the driver is not digitally signed, then that means that the integrity of the file is unknown. There is no way to validate whether or not the bits in the files have been altered or not. So somebody who is malicious could come along and they could change those files and pass it off as a driver when, in fact, it has some poisonous code and some malware in it. Digital driving in our driver signing and digital signatures provides an extra measure of security. So the net result – for you and I – is confidence that the files we receive come from who it indicates it comes from whether it's a manufacturer or Windows' Quality Labs and confidence that it's going to work and be compatible with Windows.
Now Microsoft requires that on 64-bit systems that those drivers must be digitally signed. However, if you have a compatibility problem as an IT probe and you're trying to troubleshoot a driver, one of the things you can actually do is you can actually press F8 during boot time and there is an option there available to you called Disable Driver Signature Enforcement. So you would only do that in a scenario where you're doing some troubleshooting for recently installed driver and maybe that driver is interfering with the boot. So you go in there, you disable it. It boots up properly now. And then you can go in and remove that driver or use an alternate driver until you can find something that's going to work for you. So there are some options even though it's required for 64 bit. Now here's a look at how those driver signing systems actually work and there are two different approaches to this. Microsoft supports embedding the digital signature into the driver files themselves. It also supports a companion file called the .cat file. It can also work with the file. So and so depending on the type of...now who actually does the digital signatures and the type of driver? You've got two different ways. So, if you see this .cat file, you know that you've got a Plug and Play driver with an associated category file there for digital signatures. And then other drivers, especially those low-critical drivers, digital signatures might be embedded in the driver itself.
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Okay, so now what I want to talk to you about is universal drivers. Now we've talked about drivers, driver signing, or drivers restored, how to install a driver. A lot of that is true of Windows 10. But it's also true of Windows 7, Windows 8, and previous versions of Windows. So the question is what is new actually in terms of drivers with Windows 10? I'm glad you asked. Two words — universal drivers. Now universal drivers, they fit into the Windows 10 story and they are significant. You might ask then, "Well, what exactly is a Windows...now universal driver?" Well, that's a really good question. So let me explain this.
The reason it fits into the Windows 10 story is because Windows 10, as you know, supports a common core converged code base – a single application platform – Microsoft extended that to hardware as well. And so this means that if I was a manufacturer and I wanted to create a piece of hardware that could be used by Windows 10, I can actually write a driver for it and that piece of hardware is potentially available to all kinds of Windows 10 devices – the phone, the tablet, the PC, even – you know – an IoT type of device. And I'm only writing one driver for it. So this is beneficial when you have multiple devices and you want to take advantage of some hardware. A manufacturer has a simpler path in creating a universal driver for all of those different types of devices. The actual magic behind this is Microsoft developed some new APIs and DDIs as part of this converge One Windows thing, which they call Windows OneCore. And, as a user of Windows 10, you and I get to take advantage of that because we can use our devices and attach hardware to it with a simplified driver installation or a simplified driver model.
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Alright, let's have a look now at installing device drivers. So our question that we need to answer here is how do I install a Windows driver? Now we install a Windows driver in the same method that we've installed them in the past. In fact, there are three different ways in which we can install a driver into Windows 10. I want to point out that I can do it manually provided that I have the necessary administrative privileges. Drivers come in a variety of different forms. So sometimes this might require that I just plug the device in and it detects it through Plug and Play and maybe the driver is even available through Windows Update or it actually might require that I manually go through an installer to deposit the driver and configure the driver. A lot of that is dependent on the manufacturer and the device itself.
Another approach is to do a detected install. And this is useful if I have an environment where I want users to install the device, have Plug and Play – install it, but they are not administrators. So they can actually install the driver. So I can preinstall the driver for them or stage it. As the IT administrator, I can use a command line tool called PnPUtil that deposits the driver into the DriverStore. And then when they actually add the device, it's detected and that driver is used for that new hardware once it's present. Alternatively, my third method of installation is I can do it during the actual image. And this can be done a couple of different ways. And we're going to talk about that here in a moment. But, before I do that, I want to point out this note down here at the bottom. And that is you can also manage and control which drivers are allowed or not allowed in your organization with the help of Group Policy. So there are some policy features that can help you with driver installation.
Now let's consider for a moment installing drivers to a Windows image. A couple of ways in which this can be done – first off, this can be done during deployment. So setup runs, it looks at the device, it finds some hardware, and then you've got a centralized repository. So it can grab drivers that it's a match the devices. It detected and applied that to the machine. And there are different ways in which you can manage this central repository. You might group them, you might apply some filters. This is especially true like WDS or MDT – the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit or System Center, okay. So you have these different server-based deployments. And they all can support a centralized driver repository and some of these features. You can also use an answer file if you want to. And DISM can actually read an answer file and pull drivers in that way. Over here, we have servicing. And so this is where you can actually use DISM and have it, you know, either read an answer file or manually tell DISM the location of your drivers. And DISM will come in and inject them into the image. So you use DISM to mount your image. And, once it's mounted to a folder, then you use DISM to inject your drivers. And then you would use DISM to kind of seal up and commit your driver changes to the image and the image then has inside of it the drivers. Now the downside to this, of course, is the image gets larger and larger and larger as you go. But maintaining a central repository of drivers and ensuring that setup grabs the right drivers, well, that's another layer of complexity here. It's not so much as one is better than the other as much as it is which one works, right. So that's something you'll have to decide. But this is another way in which drivers can be deployed or issued and that's during deployment.
After completing this topic, you should be able to
Printing, going to talk about printing. Don't you love printing? Don't you hate printing? I think if you're like me, you have a love-hate relationship when it comes to printers, print devices, all things printing. But, of course, they're essential. And that's one of the reasons why we love it because, you know, we can print stuff. So let's talk about printing support here on Windows 10. What about printers in Windows 10? Well, there are some enhancements in terms of printing with Windows 10, specifically around mobile device experiences. The fact that I can print from my Windows phone in an easier manner by simply taking up...I'm bringing my phone and easily using NFC to interact with the printer and my phone provided, of course, there's compatible support between them. So mobile device printing is one of the areas of emphasis here in Windows 10. Now, to understand how printing works in Windows 10, whether it's a mobile device or some other type of device, we got this diagram here. And this is nothing new in regards to the general idea of how printing works. You're using some sort of application and that application can be an application running on any type of Windows 10 device. And inside Windows 10 is a print subsystem that supports the processing, the rendering of that, and the translation of those what is within the application into something that the printer can understand. So we got this conversion to the print driver language that is supported by the device. And, of course, the key player to this is the driver itself. So, in general terms, this is how printing works in Windows.
Now what we have that's new in Windows 10 specifically is we have a broad range of printers. So as years go by new devices come to market, old devices still need to be supported. Windows 10 can actually print to a wide variety of different printers. There has been a removal of the charm-based printing. Now what exactly is that? Well, in Windows 8, there is a Charms bar, you can bring it up, and you can actually tell the application I want you to print through the Charms bar. That's gone. So, if you're an application developer and you're developing an application to print in Windows 10, you have to build the print button, because no more charm. So that's all that mean. You have to actually access that print subsystem by creating your own print button.
Now the print API, as I mentioned, is available on all Windows platform. So this again comes to that whole story of Windows 10 working on a wide variety of devices. There is a difference though between Windows 10 Mobile and the other version of Windows 10. And that is Windows 10 Mobile does support true driverless printing whereas the other version of Windows 10 supports the previous version of printing – that's v3 printers as well as v4 printers, okay. And when I say, v3, v4, I'm really speaking of the drivers. So v3 print drivers versus v4 print drivers. That's the driver model that's built into Windows 10. That doesn't apply to Windows 10 Mobile so much as Windows 10 Mobile supports a different driving standard that translates into driverless printing. And that's because there are these other standards within Windows 10 Mobile that support some common page description languages and printer languages that mobile devices are commonly using. So things like OpenXPS if you have a print device that supports OpenXPS. Windows 10 also supports OpenXPS. And the benefit for you and I is that means that we can print from our Windows 10 Mobile device whether it's a 7-inch tablet or smaller or the Windows 10 of phone.
Now here is that comparative chart between Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile, okay. So you can see here that with Windows 10 Mobile, it's only exclusively a network type of connection. Whereas with traditional Windows 10 here – which can run on other types of devices – we've got a variety of different supported connection types, right. Then in terms of the actual print support, we have any printer that has an available print driver. Over here though, Windows 10 Mobile devices have to be compatible with those mobile print standards. So it's different languages for mobile devices. The actual applications are varied with Windows 10, so you've got a lot more options there as you might expect because Windows 10 is still taking advantage of the whole desktop ecosystem for the past two decades. And so you might have a manufacturer develop a desktop application for their printer and Windows 10 will be able to use that. However, when it comes to Windows 10 Mobile, you're restricted to developing universal apps or using universal apps. Now Windows 10 Mobile, that's its primary and, you know, only application model. So you are going to have a specific print application designed for that printer that will run on Windows 10 Mobile, that can be acquired from the Windows Store or you would install it using some sideloading techniques. Either way, it's going to be a universal application and apply to those specific application standards. So that's the difference between Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile in regards to the actual printer and print driver support.
[Heading: Windows 10 versus Windows 10 Mobile. The Windows 10 is installed ahead of time whereas Windows 10 Mobile is installed on demand.]
Now there are some other print features in Windows 10, a couple of important characteristics here, and that is with Windows 10 you can, of course, share it. There is also what is called location-aware printing. And that's something that was introduced with Windows 7 where you can actually set up a location-aware default. So, depending on where you go, you have a different default printer. So when I am at home, my home printer is my default printer. When I am at work, my desk printer is my default printer. That's location-aware printing. And then there is support for v4 print drivers. Now v4 print driver is an enhancement to the whole print driver model. This was introduced in Windows 8 and it's a significant improvement because it's a move towards new driverless printing. And it's really going to be a benefit for those individuals who have to maintain print servers in their organization because it means you can have a single print driver for either 32-bit or 64-bit types of devices. So fewer drivers and less complexity than we had in the past with like Windows 7. Windows 10 can take advantage of that newer version for print driver model.
So curious about what is exactly a v4 print driver? We've got a little bit more information here. As I said earlier, it was introduced with Windows 8. It improves the overall driver development. Other important enhancements to it are listed here. The v4 print driver has easier cross-architecture support. It supports really fast point and print. And so it's intended to allow me to take my Windows 10 device and be able to quickly find my print device and be able to print to it, and so the discovery is faster and the actual printing is faster. In fact, if I have a v4 print application that's compatible with v4, I have a print device that's running Windows 10 or Windows 8 and the physical driver or the physical printer and its driver are v4 compliant, then the actual printing experience is significantly faster. And then if you add complexity to it, like color and such, it's also remarkably faster when you compare that to the Windows 7 print model – that's a version 3 print driver model. So you got several optimizations here with the v4 print driver model.
[Heading: What is a v4 print driver? The v4 printer driver model improves driver development, reduces IT costs, and supports new scenarios.]
After completing this topic, you should be able to
So the next thing I want to look at is the storage options in Windows 10. So let's do an overview of the different types of disks and the different types of disk configurations that Windows 10 supports. Now we've got a variety of different physical types of disks. This includes the platter and the SSD, but also network-based storage like a SAN in a limited way. We also have support for both physical types of disks and virtual storage containers. Two types of physical architectures – MBR and GPT. And then two types of software-based architectures – basic or dynamic. Now those are really kind of held over and inherited from Windows in the past. But Windows 10 still supports it. Now, in terms of file systems, we've got NTFS support. We also have exFAT support but primarily we're going to be using NTFS.
Now, in terms of the actual disk configurations, we have several options in which we might configure our volumes. So, probably, the most common is going to be a simple volume, a simple partition. And then I've got a population of Windows 10 devices that users in my business are using and I am supporting. This is going to be the most likely configuration that their system are going to be in. Nevertheless, I have some advanced disk configurations available to me. And these become more attractive to me. And, when I am at home and I want to configure something specifically for my media library or I have some other need for a different storage configuration...and this includes support for spanned drives, striped drives, mirror drives. Now, these typically, these three here, come in dynamic category. So, if I set up a dynamic volume or, alternatively, I can create these volumes with help of storage spaces. And what is nice about these advanced configuration options is they often come with RAID down here. Now what RAID does for me is RAID provides some redundancy. So that, if one of my disks fail and I am striping or mirroring, then I have another disk that can actually provide kind of an on the fly backup. If you're familiar with RAID, you know what I'm talking about. So storage spaces is really kind of the ideal approach when I want that kind of advanced disk configuration or I need that kind of protection.
Now how do I actually set up those different types of disk configurations? How do I manage my storage in Windows 10? Well, these options here, much different from what I had in the past. I have Disk Management, I have DiskPart, and I have PowerShell. And I can use all of these three options here just like I did in Windows 8 or Windows 7. I do have a new option in Windows 10 called storage settings. And this is found in that settings environment, that settings control. And that looks, you know, where I can do a lot of my kind of system and personalization configuration in Windows 10. So let's actually have a look at that. Shall we? So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go and I'm going to do Windows+I. And I'm going to bring up my SETTINGS environment. And then notice that there's a whole category called Devices. And this is where we get a lot of our kind of our device configuration. And this is where I would assume storage would be located. But as you can see here, storage is not located there at all. So we're going to hit back to that.
[The presenter opens the settings page in the Windows 10 environment. This page includes various options such as "Devices," "System," and "Privacy."]
So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to click on System. And this is actually where you find your storage. So I click on Storage, and this shows me how much space I have actually used. It also shows me my default save locations. That's really all there is to it. One of the things, I can do though and one of the things l like here is the ability to store my applications or some of the other important content areas like documents, music, and pictures. To store them in an alternate location besides just my C drive by default. So I'm preconfiguring this, and telling Windows 10, hey, I would...rather you store this stuff on this other drive. And this actually supports SIM cards and it supports, you know, removable storage. And so I can actually store my applications on removable storage. Now this is unavailable to me at the moment. But other Windows 10 additions, another Windows 10 builds will support that.
[He clicks the "Devices" option and the "Devices" page opens. The page is divided into two parts. On the left-hand side, a list of various options is listed. On the right-hand side, the contents of the selected option is displayed.]
Now this shows us the different types of physical disk architectures that Windows 10 supports. We have of course the conventional disks, right, the platter type disks. Slow but very inexpensive and, well, quite popular. We also have support in Windows 10 for Solid State Drives, no surprise there. These are flash-based disks, much faster, great boot times. One of the things, I want to point out is that Windows 10 is SSD aware, unlike XP. So you're going to have a much better treatment of that SSD device. Windows 10 is not going to defragment it. And instead it's going to optimize it and it has technology in it like TRIM to do so. Then we've got iSCSI down here. And that is Windows 10 also supports network storage with the iSCSI initiator. So you can configure it to talk to an iSCSI target and that, you know, could be an NAS device or a SAN device or, you know, even kind of a homemade built media server running iSCSI. And iSCSI is basically, if you're not familiar with that, sending disk I/O commands over the network, using TCPIP or using the Internet protocol. So that's kind of an exciting technology as well. When you have remote storage you want to access and Windows 10 supports all three of these types of storage.
Now let's talk a little bit about virtual storage. So not only does Windows 10 support physical types of storage, it also supports .vhd files. And there is two types supports, .vhd and .vhdx files. Now .vhd minus the x is compatible with previous operating systems like 2008 and Vista and alike. .vhdx on the other hand, that x is important because that's a virtual hard disk files format that supports larger hard drives, so greater than two terabytes. It also runs better on much larger physical disks. So Windows 10 here supports both of those file types.
After completing this topic, you should be able to
Now the next thing we want to look at is MBR versus GPT. These are two different disk architectures that Windows 10 supports. Now let's look at each of these and then compare them together. First off, let's talk a little bit about the MBR disk. Now the way the MBR disk works is it organizes the disk into partitions – at least it's available. You can configure up to four different partitions. And this begs the question – I mean – why would you want to partition in the first place? Right. Well, one of the reasons why we partition is if we have to dual boot, so we want to put in OS on a separate partition. That's a lot less likely now with virtualization and things like native VHD boot. Another reason why you might want to partition is for organizational reasons. And, in the past, we would partition if we would have file system limitations. Speaking of the past, the MBR is a legacy basic disk partitioning scheme used all the way back to DOS. So here we have a four-partition limit. So whatever the reason to why you might want to partition, you really can't go past four partitions. Now we would cheat things a little bit, we would use these things called logical drives. And with logical drives, the idea behind that is we would have a single, extended partition. And this would be one partition, but we would subdivide it into these other partitions here called logical drives. So we would have four altogether. We would have one, we would have two, we would have three, and then we would have our fourth – here our extended partition down there, divided up into logical drives.
Now the location of these different partitions is maintained inside what is called the partition table or PKT. Some people call it the Partition Knowledge Table, and this is maintained in a single sector of the disk. So this partition table has to fit inside 500 bytes, not 500 megabytes or kilobytes, just 500 bytes. That's really small now. And so that's the reason why we have a four-partition limit. Now today we also have support for these things called GPT disks. And a GPT disk is a newer disk architecture. It has not the same limitations that MBR does, it overcomes those limitations. And that it supports up to 128 different partitions. Those partitions can be large. They can be greater than 2 terabytes whereas MBR has a partition size limitation.
And the other great benefit of GPT disks is it's far more reliable. Instead of having just a single kind of a boot sector or Partition Knowledge Table and a single MBR sector, a GPT disk actually can store partition information in a table and also protects it in a backup table to ensure reliability, in case anything would happen. You see, with MBR disks, we would have a problem where we might use the wrong disk utility and that would overwrite the MBR or it might have an MBR virus, something like that. And then that would lead to, you know, having to do some recovery and try to recover the information on that disk because the partition table is gone and it appears that if there's no volumes or C drive anymore. A lot less likely to occur with the GPT disk because of this built-in reliability. Now, if we compare these two side by side, you can see what those differences look like. You can see the four-partition limit when it comes to the MBR. But you can also see here with a GPT disk, I've got greater partition support and I've got more resiliency here with the backup partition tables.
After completing this topic, you should be able to
Alright, let's have a look now at basic versus dynamic. This is the operating system partition configuration scheme and we can either go basic or dynamic. Now what is the difference between those two? Well, with a basic configuration, I have literally just a basic partitioning scheme that I am applying. So here is my basic disk. And notice I got two primary partitions, nothing fancy going on here. They have two separate functions, two different drive letters. Now let's compare that then to instead a dynamic volume or dynamic disk. When I have a dynamic disk, I have different volume configurations here that support more advanced scenarios. So, if you look at this, for example, I got an F drive here on Disk 1. And then I also have an F drive on Disk 2. Now how is it that I have a drive letter on two disks on the same system? Well, the reason why I have the same drive letters because this volume is actually spanned across more than one disk. So the scenario would be something like this – you're running out of space on Disk 1 and so you can extend it and span it and use the free space you have here on Disk 2. And you've got a single drive letter representing that entire spaces that spans across a disk. Now you can't do this with basic. This requires dynamic disks. So to compare these two, basic disks – very common, simple. Well, you're going to typically use probably the most frequent kind of configuration on Windows 10 desktops and devices.
But there is available to you dynamic disks where if you need to, you can apply like spanning or striping. And I should point something now. We're not really getting data protection in regards to dynamic disks. If I want RAID, what I'm going to do is I'm going to consider something like storage spaces instead. However, dynamic disks on a server allow me to apply software RAID. So there is a difference between dynamic disk running on Windows 10 and dynamic disks running on server. If I do need those advanced partition schemes for some reason on a Windows 10 system, I can convert my disks to dynamic. Be aware though, if I do that, I'm going to have some limitations in terms of moving the disk, especially if it contains an operating system. So, for example, let's look at this dynamic disk again. Let's look at New Volume (E:) here. If that has an operating system on it and I am booting to that and then I take Disk 1 out and I put it into another Windows 10 system, I might have problems actually booting to that E drive, especially if I put it into another system and that other system treats it as a data disk. When you do that, it actually comes up and it reports the disk as a foreign disk. You import the disk into the new system and certainly the E drive no longer is bootable. So there is some limited portability issues when it comes to dynamic disks. In my opinion, dynamic disks, even though they support some of these advanced configurations really are unnecessary. And, in many cases, I view them as legacy. Nevertheless, Windows 10 supports both basic and dynamic disk configurations.
After completing this topic, you should be able to
Now let's have a look at one of my favorite features in Windows 10 and also Windows Sever. It's called Storage Spaces and this is software-defined storage. And, in many cases, if you need a large amount of storage with data protection services or RAID, well, you don't have to go and buy a real, expensive storage solution. You might be surprised to learn that Windows 10 can do it for you with Storage Spaces. So what exactly is Storage Spaces? Well, Storage Spaces is about taking a bunch of physical disks, pooling them together, and creating instead a virtual volume. In other words, you have your actual physical disks, and those can be these inexpensive commodity hard drives. And then you have your software or logical volume. And you're basically creating from the physical disks, one or more virtual volumes that you can store your data to. And that's what you're presenting to Windows and presenting to your applications. So here is how it works.
You have your pool. Notice here friends that these can actually vary in size. So your pool of physical disks can be 1 terabyte and the other one be 3 terabyte. You don't have a requirement about all of the disks being the same size. Then you configure your Storage Space, which is really a virtual disk. And it's representing here, these disks up here. Now notice there is a difference in the size, so we've got 12 terabytes here. Well, there's not actually 12 terabytes worth of space, but that's because this is a software object. And even though it doesn't match what we physically have, we can still create it. And this gives us several advantages. It allows us to actually add to our physical storage pool when we want to. But, as far as the operating system is concerned, as far as the applications are concerned, this volume is 12 terabytes in size. Not only that, but I can actually provide some resiliency, which means when data is written to these disks, they can be duplicated or mirrored or striped across the other physical disks. So there is RAID support that Storage Spaces provides. So I'm getting a lot of great benefits from a handful of inexpensive disks that I am pooling together.
Now let's look at the specific details in regards to the requirements. Storage Spaces supports not just SATA drives, but SAS drives and USB drives. Now there is a useful note down here at the bottom that says, "If you have a storage system like a JBOD that comes with its own RAID, you want to turn that off because Storage Spaces is really wanting to be the piece that's in charge." So you have your physical disks here. They are pooled together and connected through a variety of different means. Often times, if you're serious about this, you're going to probably want to have a container – a JBOD device where your disks are connected or even maybe you've got a server with enough connections that you want to convert it into your storage array. But you've got, you know, commodity hard drives with multiple disks in there and they can be connected a variety of different ways. And then what we're going to do is turn this storage pool into our actual logical volume or Storage Space. Now, when you go to configure your storage pool, one of the things you can indicate is whether or not you want one of your physical disks – more than one to actually be a hot spare. That means it's going to be offline and out of use unless a disk fails. And then you are going to have no spare tier, if you will, that Storage Spaces will automatically begin to use. So that's a handy feature. It's not required. You can actually make all of your disks active if you want to or you can indicate if you want to have hot spares.
Another configuration decision you have to make is what kind of resiliency do you want your storage pool to use. You have some choices here. You can use mirroring or you can use striping with parity. Now the kind or type or depth of your actual resiliency depends on the number of disks that you have. So we're not talking about mirroring necessarily with just two disks. In fact, Storage Spaces supports not just two disk mirroring, but supports three-way mirroring if you have at least five disks. The interface will tell you what is available to you depending on the number of disks it sees in its pool. Of course, you can add additional disks. If you want parity, you have to have at least three disks. If you want three-way mirroring, you have to have at least five disks. Depends, of course, on what kind of performance you want to see or what the purpose of the storage pool, you know, is intended for. Those are all going to be factors to think about in regards to deciding your resiliency options.
Now there is another important characteristic here and that is thin provisioning. I mentioned this a little bit earlier, but thin provisioning has to do with the fact that the actual volume I configure for my pool doesn't actually need to match the actual physical capacity at least at the time of provisioning. So I've got this 12 terabyte of volume down here. But, over up here, I don't have 12 terabytes worth of space. In actuality, I've got a lot less space. What this allows me to do is kind of a just-in-time response. So that if space is required and I kind of start filling up these physical disks up here, I can add another disk just in time. I'll get a warning. And it will give me a message saying that I'm running out of space and Storage Spaces needs another disk. And so I just can add that. Now the benefit of that is I'm not reconfiguring my volume down here because it's already defined at 12 terabytes, instead I'm just adding capacity when I need it.
Now another great feature in Storage Spaces is tiered storage. Now not only can you configure or choose between different resiliency types and to choose the hot spare or not hot spare, but you can also choose between SSD drives and HDD drives or platter-based disks and you can mix those two together. In fact, Windows 10 is aware of the difference between these two. So, if you put SSDs and platter-based disks or even the more slower disks – the ones that run at 7200 RPM as compared to an SSD – and, if you put those two in the same pool, well, you'll have an option available to you called tiered storage where Windows 10 will write to the faster SSD drive. Any data that's frequently being accessed called the hot tier, if you will. And then the cold tier – this one down here – well, that's going to be reserved for the less accessed data – the archive data. And Windows 10 is smart enough to move data between these tiers based on the frequency of access. So this is a great benefit and another enhancement to Storage Spaces and that was not available when Storage Spaces was first released. Windows 10 supports this additional technology. And SSD drives of course, are becoming far more popular and you see them far more frequently. So this is a great way to create a storage environment that benefits from the speed of SSD, but also the inexpensive or economics of the platter-based disk.
After completing this topic, you should be able to
Alright, so let's say that you have a couple of new hard drives attached to this machine here and you want to enable storage spaces. So my question for you is where do you go and how do you do that? Think about that for a moment. Now feel free to pause the recording and resume it when you're ready for me to show you how.
[Exercise: Storage spaces.]
Alright, how well did you do? Got a good idea of where to go and how to do it, if not follow along here. First thing we need to do is go into the storage spaces control in Control Panel, and there are numerous ways to get to Control Panel. One of my favorite ways is just to actually type in when I'm looking for under search. But I'm going to actually – in this case – right-click on the Start menu button here and I'm going to choose Control Panel. And then I've got a long list of these. Now the default for the Control Panel is actually Category view. If you're not sure where you're going, well you can flatten the list by changing this to Large Icons or small and see all the different controls – there's my Storage Spaces. So that answers the first question – where to go?
[The presenter opens the Control Panel window in the Windows 10 environment and clicks the "Storage Spaces" option. Then the Storage Spaces page opens, which includes the "Create a new pool and storage space" button.]
Now let's talk about configuring Storage Spaces, and really it's just kind of no use in the wizard here so Create a new pool in storage space, we just click on that. Say Yes to UAC. Got my two drive selected automatically. Choose create pool. It's going to prep these drives, create the pool for me, and then I'm going to be presented with some additional questions here in just a moment. There we go. So the pool is being created. Now I can give it a Name, a Drive Letter, choose the File System. I can indicate whether or not I want Resiliency type define and what kind of Resiliency type. And then I can actually indicate the maximum size. So, if I'm doing thin provisioning, well I might actually want to indicate a size that's, you know, greater than what I actually have – that's what is known as thin provisioning. And it tells me that a storage space can be larger than the amount of available capacity. When you run low, I just need to add more drives. Alright, so these are some of the essential steps and procedures behind creating Storage Spaces. All I need to do now – once I have selected the settings I want – is choose Create storage space in a way it goes. So that's it. That's where you go, and those are the procedures to create a storage space.
[The presenter clicks the "Create a new pool and storage space" button and a pop-up window for User Account Control appears. This window includes two buttons, "Yes" and "No." The presenter clicks the "Yes" button. The "Create a storage pool" page appears. This page contains two unformatted drives that have been selected by default and two buttons at the bottom, "Create pool" and "Cancel." Then he clicks the "Create pool" button and a new page appears that contains the details of the storage space. At the bottom of the page two buttons are present, "Create storage space" and "Cancel."]
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