Peripherals, file management and user management

Peripherals are hardware devices connected to a computer, such as a monitor, printer, scanner or camera.

To operate a peripheral, the operating system uses a program called a . Device drivers contain instructions on how to control a device. Each connected device has its own driver.

Using device drivers brings two advantages:

any device can be used with the operating system, as long as a driver is available for it
drivers can be updated, usually to give better performance or to remove a

File handling

File handling and file maintenance is one of the most important tasks of an operating system. The file handling software allows users to:

create, modify and delete files and folders
copy and duplicate files and folders
move files and folders
rename files and folders
sort items into different orders, according to name, file type, date created and more
search for particular files and folders
restore deleted files
set access rights to files such as read only or edit

User management

Operating systems also manage users. They allow:

individual users to be created and deleted
access levels to be given to users, such as administrator rights or standard user rights
auditing (keeping a log) of files a user creates, accesses, edits and deletes