Notes

[1]A+ is comprehensive and vendor-neutral
A+ certified professionals have mastered the technologies found in today’s extensive and varied IT environments, from mobile to traditional devices and operating systems. They can confidently handle the most challenging technology problems more efficiently. Learn more with this infographic.
[2]
A+ validates foundational skills
A+ establishes best practices in troubleshooting, networking and security across a variety of devices to set the stage for IT careers. The certification also matches professional tech skills with communication skills.

A+ is trusted by employers
As businesses and governments worldwide continue to adopt mobile and cloud technology, they trust A+ certified professionals to keep their devices running and organizations working smoothly.

A+ is globally recognized and accredited
CompTIA A+ is compliant with ISO 17024 standards and is approved by the U.S. Department of Defense to meet directive 8140/8570.01-M requirements.

A+ is industry supported
A+ is developed and maintained by leading IT experts. Content for the exams stems from a combination of industry-wide survey feedback and contributions from our team of subject matter experts. Learn more about the people behind the CompTIA A+ exam development and the CompTIA A+ Advisory Committee.

[3]
how to identify hardware components found within any type of computer.
Contextualize these and learn how components have changed over time.
[4]
The second part of the A+ is not so challenging and is more like what you are used to as your 'day-to-day' support. Most of the things you will need to fix will be system tweaks within the Operating System, so here we are going to look at how the OS functions. From an exam perspective, we are going to take a look at some of the traps and pitfalls you will encounter--are you being asked to roll back; to use a system restore? To use a backup? How should a problem be fixed? What is the easiest and less obtrusive fix? You will need to not only give an answer that is sensible but one that is not 'overkill'.

You will need to already be able to demonstrate that you can:

Assemble components based on customer requirements
Install, configure, and maintain devices, PCs, and software for end users
Understand the basics of networking and security/forensics
Properly and safely diagnose, resolve, and document common hardware and software issues
Apply troubleshooting skills
Provide appropriate customer support
Understand the basics of virtualization, desktop imaging, and deployment

[5]
Linux is an opensource system. This means that its core code is available to read in the public domain and anyone can tweak it and be part of a community of coders. Linux is free (there is one commercial version, but in the main it is free) and Linux enthusiasts feel that other software, such as Microsoft should be free. This is in part why there is such tension. Apple's systems are very expensive and are scaled down. Out of the box the Apple system is not designed to join a domain and does not have most of the security features built into the Microsoft platform. Apple is considered elitist as the machines are very expensive and are easy to maintain. However, the truth is that Apple's OS X platform is based on UNIX. Linux is a UNIX system as well. Microsoft's DOS (the old underlying code to the older Windows systems) is a lite version of UNIX. They are interlinked.

Windows 10 is out of scope for the exam, however, the exam bank is constantly being added to. If it is mentioned in an exam question assume that the question is not asking you to have researched any differences between Windows 8.1 and Windows 10, rather that the function you are trying to achieve would have been actioned the same way in Windows 8.1

[6]
How do we determine if I have a 32 or 64-bit system? What am I measuring here? The architecture refers to the type of processor you are running and subsequently the motherboard designed to support it. We have 64-bit worth of data lanes connecting to the rest of the components on the board.

Driver-wise it is worth noting that 64-bit drivers will only work with 64-bit hardware. If you are using 32-bit hardware (for example, an old audio card) it will physically connect, but will need a 32-bit driver in order to communicate with the device--a 64-bit driver is not 'backwards compatible'.

64-bit drivers cannot be used on a 32-bit architecture for the same reason - it was not intended for this hardware system.

[17]
Gadgets are not popular now. Gadgets were used on the other Operating Systems to improve functionality and were a stop-gap measure to add live data to the desktop. The problem was that the Vista (where gadgets were first launched) was quite a bulky system and did not deal with gadgets well. Gadgets increased memory usage and slowed down the system.