Below I have included a screen capture of my "Control Panel" - the route to the properties of all important hardware devices in your system.  Opening any device will enable you to view it's setup configuration and troubleshoot problems you may be having.  Also, it is the only tool that will let you modify features of your system (like removing programs, changing your desktop display, setting the time, changing sound events, etc. etc.).  Best way to learn your Control Panel is just to open each utility program and try to figure out what it does.

Next I have opened, captured, and included the most important utility in Control Panel, "SYSTEM".  `System Properties' kind of rolls all of the key hardware devices into one display and gives you a birds-eye view of how these devices look.  If you see a yellow (!) by one of your installed devices, you have a problem!  By clicking on any of them you can see what model device is installed to support that function (like 'modem > 3Com?') and determine if it is working properly.