Welcome Back, Here is Part Two in my Installing Windows Series.

If you recall we were doing an install of Windows 7 from a USB Stick. If you need a refresher please refer to the last post here

NOTE ***** There are many more options after the install is complete that I am not going over with this post, please ask questions if you want further information ******

Moving forward…..

Assuming your computer can boot from a USB drive and you completed the steps from the last post the install is pretty straight forward. I’m doing this from my Dell Latitude e6500 as an example.

First Power on your computer.

In my case its F12 but it could be another keystroke to get to your boot menu

Select with the arrow keys “USB Storage Device”

Windows will boot to the Install Start Screen

Click Next after you choose your Language, Time and currency format and Keyboard

Click Install Now

Windows Install starts

Accept the License Agreement and Terms, Click Next

This screen asks you what type of installation you are performing. If you are upgrading from Windows Xp or Windows Vista Click Upgrade. In our case we are installing a new OS so we will Click Custom. Although it says “Advanced” its not hard and we will go over those steps

Click Custom

This screen shows all the hard drives on your computer. In our case we have a 60GB disk in our test laptop. While there are lots of options here for the hard disk, if you just click NEXT, the installer will partition your disk as needed. It usually does two partitions, one for the boot records (that cannot be encrypted) and one where the OS installs (your C Drive). Don't mind how small this drive is on this machine, its only an example. When doing these installs Windows creates a small partition on the drive for recovery, booting etc. You will probably never see it normally but if your looking in Disk Management you will see it there or pocking around in DISKPART

Click Next

The installer will now start copying files to the hard drive.

After the files are copied to the hard drive, the installer expands the files

After the OS files are expanded the Installer will install all the standard features of Windows 7 (and there are lots more that are not installed at this point that we can get into in a later post)

Next the installer installs Updates to the OS. Since we are installing from a USB there are no updates, you can inject them into the installer but again that’s another post.

At this point the installer will reboot your computer.

You can click Restart Now or just let the timer count down.

Windows will reboot your computer so the install can resume

Setup Resuming

Setup Completing the Installation

Setup will again restart your computer

Computer Rebooting again

Rebooting ..

Setup is preparing your computer for first use

Setup is checking video performance

Finally setup is doing things we cant see and is back to interactive.

Here we are doing to chose the name of our computer. Important to note that you cannot have more than one computer on your network with the same name. Just imagine 2 kids in the same room named Bob, how confusing would that get, same thing in the computer world.

Once you fill in the Username it automatically starts to fill in the Computer Name. If you do need to use the same name for computers and a number 2 or something for the second computer.

Next we have to specify a password. As is Windows will not enforce a strict password policy on your password but its always a good thing to do if you lose your laptop or its stolen. Strong passwords or pass phrases are usually 8 characters with upper case, lower case and letters and symbols like M@d1s0n (spelling Madison)

Click Next

Next is a very important section. This is how Windows will update itself when patches are released from Microsoft. Patches are fixes to either security threats or other issues like performance enhancements. Service Packs usually have all the patches that were released before it rolled into one update and sometimes Microsoft adds new functionality.

Click Next

Select your Time Zone and make sure your Date and Time are correct.

Click Next

Windows Firewall, Mystical program indeed but we wont get into that just now. Lets select Home because that’s where we are and everything is trusted at home right 🙂

Click Home Network

Windows setting up your computer and Windows Firewall is doing its magic

Installer finalizing all the settings on the computer

Pretty Welcome screen letting you know your close to a useable computer

Preparing your desktop.

And Windows is installed and ready for use.

Hit the Start button and start exploring what your new OS has for you

We touched on patches and service packs, Windows Firewall and other Windows features not installed by the Windows installer. They can get very complicated in reasoning’s why you need them or not. Remember its your computer so you can do what you want with it.

*****Recommendations*****

Right after the install is done and with the assumption that Windows has detected all your hardware, start patching your computer by going to Start…All Programs…Windows Update. This will download and install all the Microsoft patches to your computer. You might have to do this a couple of times since Windows 7 has been out for a couple of years and there have been a number of patches that have been released for it.

After your system is patched, get an Antivirus program. I personally love Microsoft Security Essentials, first off because its the best price, Free and its very light on your computer where you don’t see any performance degradation (that i can ever tell).

Ok your patched, AV is installed, Happy surfing or gaming.

Next post will be something a little newer, Windows 8.

Thanks for reading and please post any questions you may have

#Installs #Windows