Hardware Profiles
What's a hardware profile?
A hardware profile is basically a set of instructions that tell the operating system which devices are available and need to be enabled when you start your laptop. When you first install Windows XP on a laptop, a hardware profile named Docked Profile or Undocked Profile is created, depending on how your laptop is connected when you install Windows XP. By default, every device that is installed on your computer when you install Windows XP is enabled in that initial hardware profile. Figure A
Hardware profiles were originally designed to allow laptop computers to be used in stand-alone and docking station configurations. But advances in laptop technology and the growing number of inexpensive peripheral devices have increased your configuration options. For example, in addition to having a full-blown docking station configuration in your office that provides a network and other peripheral connections, and a stand-alone configuration when you're traveling with your laptop, maybe you have a simple port replicator at a remote office you visit regularly and a wireless network connection and external DVD drive at your home.
Thanks to Plug and Play, you can probably make the configuration changes needed at each location without too much trouble—as long as you don't encounter any device driver conflicts. However, you can avoid all of those extra steps and any potential problems by setting up different hardware profiles for each location. Let's look at how to set up and configure hardware profiles for your laptop. We'll focus on Windows XP, but the steps are similar for a laptop running Windows 2000.
Creating hardware profiles
Start by accessing the Control Panel and double-clicking the system icon. In the System Properties dialog box, select the Hardware tab and then click Hardware Profiles button to open the Hardware Profiles dialog box (Figure A).
In this example, the only hardware profile is called Undocked Profile, which means that Windows XP was installed while the laptop was in a stand-alone configuration. It also means that this laptop has never been connected to a docking station. If your laptop is Plug and Play compliant, the Windows XP operating system will automatically create a Docked Profile when the computer is connected to a docking station.
To begin preparing your laptop for additional hardware profiles, first rename the default profile with something more descriptive. Click the Rename button, type the new name in the Rename Profile dialog box, and click OK.
To enable the Hardware Profile Menu—which will appear when you start your computer—and to add the profile to the menu, click the Properties button to display the dialog box shown in
Figure B.
The center panel is disabled because the operating system detects the laptop isn't connected to a docking station. When the laptop is connected to a docking station, this panel will be enabled. Select Always Include This Profile As An Option When Windows Starts and click OK.
You can now use the Copy button to create as many additional hardware profiles as you need. Rename each one with a descriptive name related to the location. Be sure to access the properties dialog box for each new hardware profile and select Always Include This Profile As An Option When Windows Starts to include it on the menu.
Now, you can configure how the menu operates and set up your preferred hardware profile. The preference of the hardware profiles is based on their position in the Available Hardware Profiles list. The first profile in the list is loaded as the default hardware configuration during startup.
To reorder the list, select a profile and use the arrow buttons on the right to move the selected profile up or down in the list. You can also configure the menu to wait for you to choose a profile or to pause a set amount of time and then load the default profile nce the time expires. Be default, the menu is configured to display for 30 seconds, as shown in Figure C.
To complete the initial configuration operation, click OK to close the Hardware Profiles dialog box. Then, close the System Properties dialog box.
Working with profiles
Once you've created your hardware profiles, restart your system. You'll then see the Hardware Profile/Configuration Recovery Menu, shown in Figure D. Choose one of the new profiles to make it the current profile. Once the system starts with that profile, you can launch Device Manager and customize the profile by enabling or disabling devices specific to that location.
For example, you might want to disable the wireless network adapter in the Mobile profile because in this environment, you use your modem to connect to the Internet. Just access the wireless network adapter's properties dialog box in Device Manager and select Do Not Use This Device In The Current Hardware Profile (Disable) from the Device Usage drop-down list, as shown in Figure E. Then, click OK to exit this dialog box and click OK again to exit Device Manager. Now, every time you select the Mobile profile, the wireless network card will be disabled by default.
Figure E Figure D