Domain 2 - Hardware, Operating Systems, and Device Management
This domain tests device lifecycle decisions and day-to-day management: specification, procurement, enrollment, imaging, patching, repair-versus-replace judgment, and user support. Expect scenario items where a symptom must be traced to a layer before any fix is proposed.
Core rules and concepts
- Zero-touch enrollment: Apple Business Manager paired with an MDM, Windows Autopilot with Intune, or Chrome Education Upgrade licensed per device. Enrollment should not depend on a technician touching each unit.
- Manage by policy and profile, not by local administrator rights. Students and staff get least privilege; software deployment and settings flow from the management console.
- Keep a spare pool (roughly 5–10% of the fleet), asset tags, warranty end dates, and a documented refresh date in the inventory system.
- Troubleshoot in order: reproduce, isolate the layer (power, firmware, OS, profile, network, application), swap-test a known-good component, then act. Check SMART status and firmware before declaring hardware failure.
Worked example
A 30-seat lab of five-year-old desktops has slow logins. Diagnostics show 4 GB RAM against an 8 GB requirement, heavy startup items, and six drives with reallocated sectors. Reasoning: the six failing drives are end-of-life hardware and the fleet is past its refresh date, so a RAM upgrade buys months, not years. Recommendation: replace the six failing units from the spare pool now, reimage the rest with a trimmed startup profile, and schedule full refresh in the next budget cycle using cost per device per year, not the repair quote alone.
Traps that cost marks
Reimaging before capturing user data and license records; assuming reimaging rights without the correct volume licensing; expecting MDM to control personally owned devices that were never enrolled; skipping BIOS and firmware updates.