Trish, There are several definitions. Is one of these whatcha had in mind?
* A computer or peripheral device controlled by another computer. For example, a terminal or printer in a remote location that only receives data is a slave. When two personal computers are hooked up via their serial or parallel ports for file exchange, the file transfer program may make one computer the master and the other the slave
* In computer networking, master/slave is a model for a communication protocol in which one device or process (known as the master) controls one or more other devices or processes (known as slaves). Once the master/slave relationship is established, the direction of control is always from the master to the slave(s)
* Computer or peripheral device that operates under the control of another computer peripheral.
* A setting commonly adjusted using a jumper found on a computer peripheral, such as a hard disk drive. This setting sets the drive to be the secondary drive and allows for multiple devices to be connected to a single connection.
FWIW, a really smart slave never does windows.
Harv