CompTIA A+ Certification Prep 2: Software

This lesson is all about Microsoft Windows. You'll learn how to prepare for installing or upgrading Windows, install the OS, and apply the post-installation finishing touches. You'll also learn how to troubleshoot any problems that might pop up during installation.

What do you do after installing Windows? Start it up, of course! Here you'll learn about sign-in options and security, and the different kinds of user accounts available and how to manage them. Then you'll discover the various ways that Windows controls access to files and other resources based on the permissions assigned to user accounts and groups.

This lesson focuses on the two main Windows utilities that you can use to customize and configure its settings: the Settings app and the Control Panel. We'll compare the two utilities and then review how to make the most common system changes, such as changing desktop appearance settings, disabling a webcam, modifying default apps for certain file types, and more.

Windows includes dozens of helpful special-purpose utilities you can use to configure and troubleshoot a system. Here you'll learn about the Task Manager and its role in shutting down unresponsive apps and correcting slow startup and sluggish performance issues. Then we'll look at the Microsoft Management Console and explore some of its most popular snap-ins. You'll finish up by learning how to access, back up, and make changes to the Registry and understand the Registry's structure.

CompTIA A+ exam 220-1102 includes several objectives that deal with macOS and Linux, and this lesson prepares you for that by explaining the macOS desktop and how to use it to manage files, install and run apps, and access popular utilities such as Keychain and Boot Camp. You'll learn how to customize the desktop and protect your disks, files, and accounts. We'll round out this lesson by explaining the basics of the Linux OS, including distros, the (optional) desktop GUI, file systems, startup apps, and software updates.

In this lesson, you'll learn how to use the text-based command-line interface in each of the "big three" operating systems: Windows, macOS, and Linux. You'll explore the command prompt and find out how to use it to navigate the folder structure. You'll learn about basic commands for listing files and creating new directories, and we'll discuss advanced commands for moving and copying files. This lesson will finish up by explaining the basics of scripting using text commands.

This lesson looks at the various reasons a Windows system doesn't boot normally—or isn't stable after booting up—and how to fix them. You'll learn about the Windows Recovery Environment and its many tools and features, and explore the options on the Startup Settings menu, such as Safe Mode. Then you'll take your command prompt knowledge from Lesson 7 and put it to work to troubleshoot and repair boot problems at a command line interface. Finally, we'll look at the various causes of system instability and crashes and how to troubleshoot them.

This lesson continues our look at Windows troubleshooting. It tackles some common Windows performance problems from sluggish performance to services not starting, and demonstrates some of Windows' many tools and utilities for troubleshooting various problems. Here you'll put to work many of the utilities you learned about in earlier lessons in specific troubleshooting scenarios, and access the many troubleshooting tools and wizards that Windows provides for different kinds of hardware and connectivity issues.

In this lesson, we'll discuss virtualization—using special software to run a second operating system within your actual OS. We'll show you what virtualization is and explain its many benefits. You'll also learn about the types of virtualization and popular virtualization software. To finish up this lesson, you'll learn about technologies that enable technicians (and also end users) to control computers remotely.

The CompTIA A+ certification strongly stresses the area of multifunction devices (MFDs) and printing, so you'll need a high degree of technical knowledge about all types of printers. Here we'll begin our trip into printers and MFDs. You'll learn about the types of printers and scanners in common use today. We'll teach you how printers connect to PCs and networks, plus we'll talk about how they communicate with computers. Finally, we'll look at the laser printing process in detail so that you can troubleshoot like a printer technician.

In this course's final lesson, you'll learn the practical side of supporting printers and MFDs. You'll learn how to unbox and set up a printer, and how to install drivers for it to make it work in Windows. You'll then learn how to configure and maintain printers, and how to troubleshoot the many different problems that printers have, from general connectivity issues to print quality problems specific to certain printer technologies.