For Dummies Windows 7 All-in-One 978-0-470-48763-1 User Manual

Chapter 1: Finding and Installing 
the Hardware You Need

In This Chapter

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et’s face facts: You don’t need all the fastest, most expensive gadgets to 
get value out of your computer. On the other hand, equipment that fits 

your needs can help you do more and better work in less time.

You can spend a whole lot of money on toys and gewgaws that, ultimately, 
end up collecting dust. You can spend a pittance on items that you’ll use 
every day. Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell in advance whether a specific, 
fancy new WhipperSnapper II belongs to the former group or the latter.

This chapter reviews the common computer thingies now available to help 
you decide whether any of them would be valuable to you. I take a special 
look at the hardware that’s supposed to make Windows 7 work faster.

 

I’ve had a great deal of luck in upgrading three- or four-year-old Windows XP 
PCs to Windows 7: In many cases, a little more memory (goose it up to 1GB) 
and a decent video card (widely available for, say, $50 or less) provide all 
the oomph necessary to get Windows 7 humming, on hardware that’s more 
than a little past its prime.

In subsequent chapters, I take a specific look at hard drives, and printers 
and multifunction devices (you know, copier/scanner/faxer/coffee-warmer/
foot-massager appliances). I also discuss Device Stage, a feature that 
debuted in Windows 7, which may make using hardware less, uh, hard.