Applications are designed to operate within specific technical parameters. In this video, you’ll learn about these specifications and how to manage user permissions and system security when installing applications.
<< Previous Video: The Windows Control Panel Next: HomeGroups, Workgroups, and Domains >>
Once you’ve installed your operating system and everything is up and running, you’ll then want to begin installing applications. These applications allow you to extend the functionality of your operating system and provide you with capabilities for word processing, spreadsheets, graphics capabilities, and much, much more.
Sometimes these applications are acquired from the operating system manufacturer, but many applications are written by third parties. So you can find these applications almost anywhere. But of course, not every computer can run every application. There are still a number of criteria that have to be examined before you can be sure that an application is going to run on your computer.
One important application consideration is drive space. You want to be sure, not only that you have enough drive space to install the application, but you also may need additional drive space just to be able to use the application. Programs such as word processing documents need places to store those documents. And there may be other applications, such as video editing systems, that require hundreds of gigabytes of storage so that you can store temporary information along with the video files that you create.
Another important consideration is the amount of memory in your computer. You not only need enough ram to run your operating system, but you need additional memory to run this particular application. And if you’re running multiple applications simultaneously in this operating system, you’ll need enough memory to support all of those executing at one time.
You also have to consider that many applications are written for a specific edition or type of operating system. So there may be certain applications that are only written for 64-bit versions of Windows, and not 32-bit versions of Windows. You might also find that an application written for Windows 10 may not work properly in Windows 7.
Many application installations take place on a local computer. You have both the installation program and the local computer all in the same place. Often, you can even download the executable for the installation directly from the internet and install it from the hard drive or storage device on that computer.
If you buy an application from a third party, you may receive that application on a CD-ROM or a DVD-ROM or some type of optical media. And you may find that very large programs to install, such as the operating system itself, may be distributed on a USB flash drive. This makes it very easy to plug in the flash drive to any available USB port, and you can install the application locally from there.
In a business or any large organization, it’s not very efficient to have someone go from station to station and computer to computer just to install an application. In those scenarios, there may be a network-based installation. All of the applications may reside on central server, and any installations are occurring across the network, rather than taking the media locally to that computer.
This also allows the system administrators to go to one place to manage that single application. If there is an update or an upgrade to an application, they simply add it to the staging server, and that update can be pushed out to anyone’s computer.
During the installation process, the program that installs the application needs proper access to be able to store those files on a person’s computer. In many environments, you may find that the user doesn’t have those types of permissions, specifically to prevent the user from installing unauthorized applications. In those situations, it may require a system administrator to be able to provide the correct credentials so the application can be installed.
There might also be an installation program that needs to install its own service or its own drivers. And in those cases, it needs to run as administrator or some other type of elevated rights. This isn’t common for most applications, but if you do run across a set up program that needs this level of access, you want to be sure you understand exactly what that process is doing.
This is always a consideration when you’re installing an application or running any executable on your system. Every single one of these programs has the potential to do something bad to the operating system, your data, or your applications. So it’s important that when you’re installing these applications, that you know exactly where that installation program came from.
An application running on a user’s desktop has exactly the same rights and permissions as that user. So it has the same access to all of the user’s files and everything associated with that user’s operating system. This means that a malicious application could cause the system to stop functioning. It could slow down the entire system, or it could begin deleting or encrypting all of the user’s files.
From that point, the malicious application could go across the network to be able to access even more data. The user may have access to particular services internally or shared files, and the malicious software would then have access to that data as well. That’s why it’s commonly mentioned that you know exactly where an application came from before you install it, and that you have the proper security procedures in place to prevent any of these types of issues.