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Tech Tips / Windows 2000 Professional / Hardware and Drivers

View IRQ and other resource allocations

At some point you've probably played with the Device Manager to enable or disable devices or view/change their settings. What you might not have realized is that the Device Manager offers four different views.

The default view shows devices by type, with each type under its own branch (Disk Drives, Display Adapters, Mice, Modems, etc.). While you can view resource device usage in this view, you have to do it one device at a time. That's a real pain if you're trying to find an available IRQ, base address, or DMA channel for a new, non-plug-and-play device you need to install.

Rather than hunt and peck through the Device Manager's default view, click View | Resources By Type for a more convenient view. This view organizes IRQ, DMA, I/O base address, and memory addresses under their own branches. You can then tell at a glance what IRQ channels (or other resource type) are available simply by opening that branch.