Windows 7 - Devices and Printers

What is the significance or usefulness of this item? When I selected it, it showed several devices, but only one of my two DVD burners (LG)...the Samsung doesn't appear. The drive is otherwise visible and usable in the OS. I selected Add Device from the menu and a search window appears and says that it is searching, but it has continued doing that for over 10 minutes now, with nothing changed, except a higher than normal CPU activity. Bottom line is what is this feature's purpose?

I'm not sure of its purpose.

Mine shows my PC, monitor, printer, Microsoft XPS document writer, and fax. The last 2 are apparently part of the OS. No sign of my DVD burner. Right-clicking my PC brings up a lot of choices.


Didn't Vista have a printer-only Control Panel?

Vista? I've never touched it. The only thing that I can think of is a place to display the status of the devices. I have a couple of things disabled in the Device Manager, and the computer icon in Devices and Printers shows an exclamation mark also, but this seems somewhat recundant.

I also failed to mention that my IDE harddrive isn't displayed, but my SATAs are. I'm just trying to decide whether this feature deserves a space on the Start Menu or not?

EDIT: I also noticed that the example in the help file showed a telephone. I have seen software programs for managing telephones, but Windows 7 doesn't have anything like that built-in...does it?