Setting Up New Hardware

As you use your computer, you might find that you want to add new or upgraded components to your system. You might purchase a digital camera or scanner. You might add a rewritable DVD drive or add more system memory (RAM). As another example, you might add one of the many digital music add-ons, such as a portable digital music player.

Sometimes setting up new hardware can be as straightforward as the automatic printer installation described earlier. In the best-case scenario, you simply attach or install the new device, and Windows Vista sets it up automatically. This is usually the case for any device that connects to your computer via a USB port, including a mouse, keyboard, scanner, digital audio player, and so on. If that doesn’t happen, however, you can always install the device manually. Both methods are covered in this section.