Operating Systems and Your. Week 3: Package and Software Management

Most shared libraries in Windows are managed by which of the following?

Side-by-side assemblies, or SxS; The SxS system is used in Windows to manage shared libraries. Most of these shared libraries are stored in the C:\Windows\WinSxS folder.

Which of the following correctly describes a "Security Patch?"

A piece of software that's meant to fix up a security hole. That's the purpose of a security patch!

Which of the following tools allows you to create or edit MSI files?

Orca; The Orca tool, that's part of the Windows SDK, will let you work with MSI files.

Before you install software, which of the following commands should you run to get an updated version of your software?

apt update; Before you install any software, always make sure you're pulling the latest software from your repositories with the apt update command.

What's the PowerShell commandlet you can use to extract and compress archives right from the commandline?

Compress-Archive; The Compress-Archive commandlet in PowerShell can help you work with Archives from the command line.

What's the correct commandlet to use in order to find a software package in the available package sources from the PowerShell command line?

Find-Package; The Find-Package commandlet is the way to go if you want to locate a particular package and its dependencies.

Which of the following is the piece of information that Windows will use to search for the right driver for a new piece of hardware connected to a Windows computer?

Hardware ID; The Hardware ID will be used by the operating system to search for the appropriate driver for the newly connected hardware device.

Which of the following PowerShell commands will install the package "awesomesoftware" from the Chocolatey software source?

Install-Package -Name awesome software -Source chocolatey; This command will install a (fictional) package, using chocolatey as the software source.

What's the purpose of a DLL in Windows?

To share a package of useful code among programs; A DLL, or Dynamic Linked Library, is loaded when a program is run, and provides useful code for the program.

Which of the following file extensions are considered archives in Windows? Check all that apply.

.tar; The .tar, .zip and .rar file extensions are used as archives. The .exe file extension is a Windows executable file. .zip .rar

What's the difference between an EXE file and an MSI file? Check all that apply.

An EXE file is an executable that may have an MSI file as one its resources; An executable or EXE file can "wrap" an MSI file, which is used by the Windows Installer to guide the installation process of an application. MSI files are used by the Windows Installer to control how your application is installed.

If you're performing an installation from the command line in Windows, what's the best method of checking out the options that the installation package provides? Check all that apply.

Consult the documentation for the application to see what options they provide; Often the /?, /h and /help switches will give you some insight into what options the installer provides. Alternatively, you can check the documentation for the software to get the same information. Try to use the /?, /h, or /help flags when running the package to see if they provide any helpful output.

In Linux, in the /dev directory, devices that start with sd can be associated with what type of device? Check all that apply.

Hard drives; The /dev/sd* devices are associated with mass storage devices. USB drives Memory sticks

When would you want to use an MSI file to guide the installation of a program, as opposed to an EXE?

When you want the Windows Installer to perform bookkeeping and setup for your application, at the cost of following the rules the Installer requires; Using the Microsoft Installation Package format to guide a program's setup is a good way to get a lot of functionality out of the box. It does mean you'll need to follow the rules and format the Windows Installer requires.

What's the difference between apt and dpkg? Check all that apply.

dpkg is used as a standalone Debian package command; The dpkg command is used as a standalone package installer, while the apt command is used as a package manager that installs package dependencies. apt installs package dependencies apt is used as a package manager.