Description of the My Computer Information Tool in Help and Support (308920)

MORE INFORMATION

You can use the My Computer Information tool to view information about the hardware, software, and settings that are used on your computer.

You can start the My Computer Information tool by using the following steps:

1. Click Start, and then click Help and Support.
2. On the right side of the Help and Support home page, click Use Tools to view your computer information and diagnose problems.
3. Click My Computer Information in the tools list on the left side of the next page.

The following options are available when you use the My Computer Information tool:

• View general system information about this computer
  This item displays a summary of the computer configuration including System model and BIOS; Processor; Operating System version, Service Pack, Location, PID and hotfixes installed; General Computer Information; Memory capacity; and local disk summary.
• View the status of my system hardware and software
  This item provides a list of programs and device drivers, software, hardware, hard disks and memory, and includes links for more information and troubleshooters for these items.
• Find information about the hardware installed on this computer
  This item displays more information about the hardware that is installed on the computer, as well as the driver that are in use for each component.
• View a list of Microsoft software installed on this computer
  This item lists information about all Microsoft software on the computer including the Product ID (PID) for Windows and each program, startup programs, and a list of errors that have been encountered on the computer.
• View Advanced System Information
  This item links to more information that is available, including:
  
  
  • View detailed system information (Msinfo32.exe)
    This item starts the System Information tool.
  • View running services
    This item displays a list of services, as well as run, status, and startup mode for each service.
  • View Group Policy settings applied
    This item displays information about the group policy settings that are applied to the computer and user. You can also save the information to an Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) log file, and open the Resultant Set of Policy (RSoP) information.
  • View the error log
    This item displays errors that are recorded for the computer in the System event log.
  • View information for another computer
    When you use this item, you can connect to another computer on the network to view the same information as the information that is available in the My Computer Information tool on your local computer. Note that you need to have permissions on the other computer, either through domain membership, using a user name and password that has permissions on the remote computer, or by saving a stored user name and password for an account on the remote computer before you try to make the connection.
  For additional information about the System Information tool, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

  308549 Description of Windows XP System Information (Msinfo32.exe) Tool