Understand the new changes in Windows XP SP2 hardware support

What I want to introduce today is not SP2's new features such as pop-up blocking pop-ups, add-on management, professional firewalls, etc., but let's take a look at SP2's new hardware. Variety.

1. DEP lets you protect your system from the hardware level.

Date (Date Execution Prevention) is a security feature in Windows XP SP2 that helps protect your computer from viruses and other security threats. Unlike firewalls or anti-virus programs, DEP does not prevent harmful programs from being installed on your computer. It is only used to prevent viruses and other security threats from running harmful code in any protected memory location on your computer. DEP uses a compatible microprocessor to mark some common memory locations as "unexecutable". If a program attempts to run code from an unexecutable location, Windows will automatically close the program. The benefit of this is that it can be run. Installed programs help prevent worms, viruses, and other security threats from attacking your computer. By default, DEP is turned on for all programs on your computer.

It should be noted that DEP can only be used if Windows XP SP2 or Windows Server 2003 SP1 or higher is installed on the computer, and the processor must also be compatible with the Data Execution Protection technology. Because DEP is implemented by the NX (No eXecute) function of the processor, the NX processor can mark the data in the memory that does not explicitly contain the executable code as "Non-executable", if the virus program tries to compile and execute and is processed by NX. The code is marked as the code of the memory area in which the data is stored, and the system finds and blocks this attempt. But unfortunately, the current common 32-bit processors such as P4 do not support NX. The processors supporting the technology
include AMD Athlon 64, AMD Opteron, Intel's Itanium and Itanium 2, and it is said that nVIDIA Companies such as VIA and Transmeta also plan to add NX technology to their chips. However, due to the slow pace of the related hardware vendors to update NX, Microsoft is anxious, but has to wait a little, for this reason, SP2 has been postponed.

Figure 1 DEP option

If the version number of SP2 you installed is 2149 (as shown in Figure 1), then the system will be detected and the software can now be forced. DEP, click the "Add" button to add the program file (*.exe) to be protected to the list. If the computer uses 64-bit processing KKD, you can turn off DEP for applications designed to run on 32-bit processors. However, DEP cannot be turned off for applications designed to run on 64-bit processors. If it is a version before 2149, you will see the message "The processor of your computer does not support data execution protection software due to hardware design" (see Figure 2).

< BR> Figure 2 2149 version prompt information

As early as 2001, Windows XP supports IEEE 9=802.11, SP2 enhances further support for Bluetooth technology
, of course, without Bluetooth installed In the case of the device, the system will not produce any changes. Only when the system is connected to the Bluetooth device, the corresponding Bluetooth identification icon will appear in the control panel and taskbar, so that the user can conveniently configure and connect the Bluetooth device.

If you install SP2, you will find that it is very simple and easy to configure the wireless network device. Just follow the instructions of the wireless network installation wizard to complete the relevant configuration (as shown in Figure 3). ), it is recommended to save the network settings to a USB flash drive, then just plug the USB flash drive into the access point and plug in each computer or device you want to add to the network; of course, if you don't have a USB flash drive, you can only Set up the network manually for each computer or device.

Figure 3 Wireless Network Installation

2. Windows Update support for hardware

Previously, Windows Update only provided updates for Windows systems and system-related components (IE, Windows Media Player, Windows Messenger), but now in addition to providing system updates, Windows Update also Support for Microsoft series of applications (such as Microsoft Office, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange) and hardware driver updates (as shown in Figure 4. Added "Windows Update" button in the "System Properties → Hardware" tab. Clicking will open the page shown in Figure 5. The default setting is "Whenever I connect to a new device, ask me if I want to search for Windows Update". It is recommended to change to "If the device requires a driver, please do not ask me to go directly to Windows Update" option In this way, when installing a new device, you can download the driver directly from Microsoft's hardware driver library to maximize the compatibility and stability of the hardware device. Of course, if you love the driver provided by the manufacturer, it is another matter. >

Figure 4 System property settings


Figure 5 Whether to search for drivers If you need to view SP2 compatible hardware devices, you can open http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/catalog/default.ASPx?subid
=7&&xslt=hardware&&pgn The =97aad4f8-31e0-4add-a5e7-6e2cf8e82df7&&title=hardware page provides information about Personal Computers, Printers, Sound, Cameras and Video, Scanners, Monitors, Input Devices, Networking and Modems, Storage. Hardware devices such as Other Hardware, friends may wish to take a closer look. Of course, the benefits of SP2 are not limited to the above, SP2 can automatically identify more and update hardware devices, and as long as SP2 is installed after 2126, DirectX will automatically update. To 9.0c, you can get support for Pixel Shader 3.0 and Vertex Shader 3.0. If you have already used a graphics card that supports Shader 3.0, don't miss this free. Lunch time.