Windows 2000 recognises most hardware. However, it is not uncommon to find that an occasional device doesn't get recognised properly. Plug and Play is smart enough to reconfigure other devices, should a new peripheral require that other device settings change to accommodate the new peripheral. However, Windows 2000 doesn't always automatically configure new hardware, even if the new hardware is Plug and Play compatible. You can trigger Plug and Play configuration in some of these cases by opening Control Panel's Add/Remove Hardware Wizard and selecting Add/Troubleshoot A Device. Sometimes, though, it is necessary to manually specify the settings used by a Plug and Play peripheral that has failed to configure properly, and it's almost always necessary to manually enter configuration information for non-Plug and Play hardware. Third, know how to configure non-Plug and Play hardware
Use Control Panel's Add/Remove Hardware applet to manually install a device. The Add/Remove Hardware Wizard will open. Click Next on the welcome screen, and two options will become available. Select the first, Add/Troubleshoot A Device. Plug and Play will then attempt to detect the device. If the device is listed in the Devices window, highlight the troublesome peripheral and click Next. If the device isn't detected, you'll need to click Add A New Device in the Devices window and then click Yes, Search For New Hardware in the next window. The Add/Remove Hardware Wizard will try to detect non-Plug and Play devices. If the system finds new devices, it will display them in the Detected Hardware window. Select the device you want to install and click Next. Should the system fail again to find the non-Plug and Play device, click Next. The Hardware Type window will open. Specify the peripheral you want to add from the Hardware Types window and click Next. In the last step, you must specify the driver that the device should use. This is true both for devices that Plug and Play found and those it did not. Choose the manufacturer from the left pane and the respective device model in the right pane. Or click Have Disk if you have the driver on a floppy or hard disk, CD-ROM, or network share. Click Next to load the driver and specify the driver's location, if necessary. Eckel's take
Those are the prescribed methods for troubleshooting Plug and Play and hardware resource errors. Keep these methodologies in mind when preparing for any Microsoft exam that's likely to test you on hardware configuration. In the real world, other utilities are available. Many manufacturers and vendors include their own diagnostic tools with their drivers, and often a device is installed using its own Setup file, which can eliminate the need for the Add/Remove Hardware Wizard.
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