
                               Hardware Explorer
                               -----------------


Hardware Explorer is an alternative to the native OS/2 Hardware Manager located
in the "System Setup" folder. The main goal of this project is a more complete
and accurate representation of the installed equipment. Different types of
devices have unique icons and this greatly simplifies the orientation and
visual perception of information.

The user is given the opportunity to track changes in real time, such as
changes in the resources used by the equipment, connecting and disconnecting
USB devices.

The pci.ids and usb.ids files (included in the installation package) are used
to display the manufacturers, product's and class names of PCI and USB devices
in human-readable form. These files are used by various programs and are
constantly updated. The user is free to download and install the most current
versions of these files at any time. To do this, it is enough to replace the
old pci.ids and usb.ids files in the %ETC% directory with the new ones,
Hardware Explorer will determine that the files are updated and will begin to
use them. You can find the latest versions of these files at the following
links:
  The PCI ID Repository: https://pci-ids.ucw.cz/
  The USB ID Repository: http://www.linux-usb.org/usb-ids.html


If you are completely satisfied with the result of this Workplace Shell class,
the native Hardware Manager in the "System Settings" folder may be hidden. To
do this, go to the settings notebook of the "System Settings" folder, then go
to the "Include" tab and add an "Exclude" criteria for objects of class
"Hardware Manager" (WPHwManager).

In our opinion, it is best to use the hwmanins.exe utility to remove/install
the original hardware manager. You can find hwmanins.exe in this archive. Run
it with the command line switch -? to see the help.

WARNING: Utility hwmanins.exe may be used at your own risk. Make sure that you
         have a current WPS backup, for example, created by the WPS archiving
         mechanism which can be enabled on the "Archives" page in the Desktop
         settings notebook.


Special thanks to:

  David Graser for icons,
  Lars Erdmann for source of HwMan and all kinds of help,
  Os4User for testing, sharing ideas and all kinds of help,
  IRC channel #os2russian (EfNet) community for testing.


---

Donations are most welcome!
PayPal: digi@os2.snc.ru
https://www.arcanoae.com/shop/os2-ports-and-applications-by-andrey-vasilkin/
Yandex.Money: https://money.yandex.ru/to/410017073387496

Andrey Vasilkin, 2020
E-mail: digi@os2.snc.ru
