Create and Activate New Hardware Profile using Windows OS

A hardware profile specifies the configuration and characteristics of specific hardware devices and services that load at startup. It also specifies the settings Windows 2000 uses for each device. Hardware profiles enable you to optimize one computer to work in different environments.
During installation, a default hardware profile (called Profile 1) is created, which loads every device that was installed on the computer at the time Windows 2000 was installed. If the computer will be moving from one environment to another (such as with a laptop or notebook computer), you can create additional profiles to change which devices are loaded in different locations. For example, if your mobile computer is connected to the network when you are at the office, but is not connected to a network at home, you can create a new profile for home use that will not load the unnecessary network card drivers (which slows down bootup time).

To create a new profile, you copy an existing profile, and then modify the configuration settings for the new profile. This is demonstrated in the following Simulation, which is based on the following scenario:
Mary has a laptop computer that she uses both at the office and when she is on the road. When at the office, Mary connects via an Ethernet card to the company network. On the road, she is not connected to a network, and it takes a long time for her computer to boot up as it searches for the network connection. In this Simulation, you will create a second hardware profile that disables the network adapter.
Creating new Hardware profile

Once you have created a new hardware profile, you will need to activate it before it takes affect. If more than one profile has been defined for a computer, Windows 2000 will display the Hardware Profile/Configuration Recovery menu, shown below during setup.

The default profile is the first profile that appears in the list. To change the order of the list, perform the following steps:

1. Open the Control Panel
2. Double-click System, and then click the Hardware tab,
3. In the Hardware Profiles dialog box, click the profile that you want to move, and then click the up and down arrows to change the order in which that profile appears.

The system will wait for a specified period of time before automatically starting the default configuration. This period of time can be changed by configuring the Hardware Profile Settings
Question: What must you do first in order to create a new hardware profile?
Answer: Copy an existing hardware profile.
In the next lesson, you will learn how to configure the display.