Pc Windows Tips

There are a number of steps to take before you install Windows XP Pro Edition or Windows XP Home Edition to ensure you don’t run into problems later. One of the key factors is to insure your computer hardware is compatable with the version of Windows XP your going to be installing. Its advised that you download the drivers for Windows XP for your current devices from the manufacturer that developed your sound card, video card, ethernet card or whatever other hardware you have installed on your computer before starting the installation. Next would be to burn them to a CD RW or to a movable disk drive, to ensure a smooth transition. If you used the Windows XP Upgrade Advisor and found that some of your PCI devices / hardware is not compatable with Windows XP, this would be the time to buy replacement hardware that will be compatable.

Step by Step Guide to Install Windows XP Pro or Windows XP Home Edition

Installing Windows XP Pro or Windows XP Home Edition is a pretty straightforward process; accept for a few minor requirements. You will notice that one of the benefits to installing Windows XP Pro Edition or Windows XP Home Edition is that Microsoft put all of the data installation requirements right at the beginning, so you can actually get up and walk away from your computer for about half an hour. Unlike previous Windows operating systems, Win95, Win98 se, Win Me and Windows NT where you had to sit through the installation waiting for the prompts that required you to enter more information.

Step 1:

Reboot your computer and keep tapping the F2 or DEL key on your keyboard until your computer goes into the System BIOS as you need to double check your computer to ensure it is set to boot to the CD ROM First in Bootable Devices.

If the ATAPI CD-ROM it is not set to the first boot device in the system BIOS then make the necessary changes now to ensure you have no errors during installation. Now make sure that the Primary Hard drive is set to second boot device. It will be marked as HDD or HDD-0 in your BIOS. Save your changes and exit the System BIOS.

Step 2:

Now insert the Windows XP installation CD in the CD-ROM and reboot the computer, if you see a message about hitting any key to boot the CD, do so now. Otherwise, you will see a message about Setup inspecting your system.

Step 3:

Now the MS-DOS portion of Setup begins and at the first stage of Setup, you will see a series of blue and gray MS-DOS-based screens. In the first step, you will be asked to press F6 if you need to install any third-party or RAID drivers.

You will also see the other option to press the F2 to initiate the Automated System Recovery (ASR) tool; a new feature that Microsoft incorporated into Windows XP that lets you recover a non-booting systems from XP Setup. Ignore this option as we will be performing a new installation of Windows XP.

You will finally see that the Windows XP setup process has started to load the files it needs to do a clean install of Windows XP Pro or Windows XP Home Edition. This may take a several minutes to complete.

Step 4:

You will now see the Welcome to Setup Screen. Now the Setup begins of Windows XP.

In this step you can set up Windows XP or launch the Recovery Console or quit. We need to Press ENTER to continue the Setup. Now Windows XP installation will examine your hard drives and any removable disks attached to your computer.

Step 5:

On the next screen you will have the license agreement you’ll have to agree to Microsoft’s licensing agreement to continue the Windows XP installation.

No one reads this; I know, so go ahead and hit the F8 key to agree to the Microsoft license and continue with the installation.

Step 6:

You will now have to choose an installation partition to install Windows XP on. On a clean install of Windows XP Pro Edition or Windows XP Home Edition, you will typically install to the C: drive, but you might want to run a dual-boot system with another operating system like Win98x, Win NT etc. So you will want to create another partition for the other operating system.

Setup will show you all of your available disks (in this case, just one) and let you create and delete partitions as needed. So, for example, if you have one disk, but would like to create more then one partition, one for Windows XP and one for your data, you can do that here.

For better performance its best to set hard drives that are larger to use more partitions, C: for Windows XP and D:, E:, F: etc partitions for data storage or other users to store their information in. Having set a large hard drive to smaller partitions means a more responsive and faster computer as the computer doesn’t need to scan the entire hard drive to find the information, using more resources.

Step 7:

Now you will be asked to select the type of partition FAT32 or NTFS? I recommend going with the NTFS file system, which is more secure than FAT32.

You will need to format the new partition, whether you chose FAT32 or NTFS, I always recommend doing a full format rather then a quick one as it will correctly format each sector of the Hard Drive accordingly and ensure the hard drive has been properly setup to install Windows XP. Use your arrow keys to scroll to the selected option.

Formating a previous Partition

If you had a partition already on your hard drive that you selected to format to another file system - NTFS for example you would see the following screen.

First, you’ll be asked to verify the format. If you’re installing Windows XP on a system with more than one partition, especially one that still holds your data on one of the partitions, be sure you’re formatting the correct partition.

Hit F to continue, and a yellow progress bar will indicate the status of the format. When this is complete, Setup will again examine your disks, and create a list of files to be copied to the bootable sector of your Hard Drive.

Step 8:

The Windows XP Installation will now setup and copy system files to the primary boot partition you just created. This will allow the PC to boot from the C: drive and then the system will reboot and continue the setup in the Microsoft GUI interface mode.

When the system reboots, you will probably see the “Press any key to boot from CD” message again. If this happens, do not press a key, simply ignore this message!

In the event that you cannot continue the CD-based Setup from reloading due to a system error, eject the Windows XP Installation CD and reboot the computer again. Setup will ask for the Windows XP CD when needed.

Step 9:

Once the system has rebooted, you will notice the nice interface known as the GUI / setup phase, which is much more attractive than the standard DOS-mode used in previous versions.

As you progress through GUI Setup, you can read information and features about Windows XP Pro Edition or Windows XP Home Edition on the right side of the screen.

Next, your hardware devices are detected and installed. This could take several minutes.

Step 10:

On this screen you can choose to customize the regional and language settings that will be used by Windows XP. Users in the United States or Canada will not normally need to change anything here.

Click next to continue.

Step 11:

Next you will be asked to enter your name and, optionally, your company.

Note: The name you enter is not the same as your user name that will be used within Windows XP, so you should enter your real name here. This information is used to register the computer owner.

Click Next to continue.

Step 12:

Next you are required to type in your Windows XP Pro Authentication Key, located on the orange sticker found on the back of the CD Cover that came with Windows XP Pro. You cannot install XP Pro or XP Home without a valid product key.

Later on, you will be asked to activate and optionally register your copy of Microsoft Windows XP Professional. The product key is a unique ID that can only be used to install Windows XP on one PC.

Click Next to continue.

Step 13:

In the next step of the Windows XP Setup, you can create a name for your computer, which also will be the name of the computer on your local network or router switch. This option is only available in Windows XP Pro Edition, and at this point you can create a password for the system Administrator, which will be the person who controls the administration aspect of the PC.

Now Windows XP Pro Setup generates a random name for your PC, but it’s always ugly looking, so I recommend renaming it to something more logical (YourName etc).

In Windows XP Pro, the Administrator password is optional, you can leave it blank but I strongly recommend that you provide a good password here for security reasons.

Windows XP Home doesn’t allow you to enter an Administrator password, as this account is hidden on Windows XP Home installs. So you can only enter a machine name in Windows XP Home Edition.

Click Next to continue.

Step 14:

Next, you can adjust the date and time to mach your time zone, which are auto-set based on information in your BIOS, and the time zone.

Change these settings to the appropriate time zone and your current date this information is used by the system clock on the taskbar of the desktop.

Click Next to continue.

Step 15:

If you have a Ethernet card / Network card installed in your computer, the Windows XP Setup will now install the network components, which include the client for Microsoft networks, File and Print Sharing, the Quality of Service (QoS) Packet Scheduler, and the TCP/IP networking protocol by default.

Step 16:

Now you can choose to keep the default settings (recommended) or enter custom settings.

Note: That Windows XP doesn’t include the legacy NetBEUI protocol out of the box. If you want to use this protocol, you will need to install it later from the Windows XP CD-ROM under Value.

Click Next to continue.

Step 17:

In Windows XP Professional Edition only, will you be able to select a workgroup or domain name.

Home Edition doesn’t work with Windows domains, however setup will automatically supply the workgroup name MSHOME, which you can change later. The default workgroup name in Windows XP Pro is, WORKGROUP.

I recommend changing this to something that isn’t easily guessed to keep your network safe from port scanners and other related security issues.

Click Next to continue.

Step 18:

Now Windows XP Pro Edition or Windows XP Home Edition will continue with the completion of the setup without any further need of user interaction, so this is a good time to grab a drink, snack or bathroom break.

Setup will now copy files, complete installation, install your Start Menu items, register system components, save settings, remove any temporary files needed by setup, and then reboot your computer.

Note: You will probably see the “Press any key to boot from CD” message on reboot. If this happens, do not press a key, ignore this message and your new Windows XP install will boot up.

You may remove the Windows XP Setup CD now.

Step 19:

Once your computer reboots you’ll be greeted by the Windows XP splash screen on first boot (this actually appears briefly when you rebooted into GUI Setup as well).

The splash screens for Windows XP Pro Edition and Windows XP Home Edition are notably different!

Step 20:

Now if you have a CRT monitor and some LCDs (such as laptops and flat panel displays) will see a Display Settings dialog appear, which asks whether you’d like Windows XP to automatically set the resolution. This will generally change the resolution from 800 x 600 to 1024 x 768 on a CRT monitor, or to the native resolution of an LCD display.

Click OK and let Windows XP change the resolution for best performance. Next, accept the settings if the screen displays changes can still be read without and loss in resolution selects OK. If you can’t see the display select cancel, if you do nothing it will time out after 30 seconds and return to the sub-optimal 800 x 600 resolution automaticly.

Click OK to accept the screen resolution change.

Step 21:

Welcome to Microsoft Windows! you are now presented with XP’s “Out of Box Experience,” or a wizard to guide you through the final setup of your Windows XP PC.

Click Next to continue.

Step 22:

On the following screen, you are asked to set up your network Internet connection, which is required for activation and registration. If you selected the default networking configuration during Setup and know it will work because you’re connected directly to a cable modem or your on a local area network, then select Yes (the default).

Otherwise, you can select No and then Skip.

l’ll assume that your network is up and running and select Yes.

Click Next to continue.

Step 23:

If you selected “Yes,” in the previous screen, you are asked if you’d like to activate Windows XP. This will register your copy of Windows XP to the current PC it’s installed on.

Activation requires a connection to the Internet, but you can perform this step later if you want. Windows XP will remind you later to activate your copy of Windows to complete the Microsoft Registration.

I recommend selecting No, since you can activate later.

Click next to continue.

Step 24:

Next you can set up the user name of the computer account you will use to sign on to at the GUI screen each time Windows XP reboots.

This phase lets you create up to five users. You can create more later, or manage users, using the User Accounts tool in Control Panel.

Click Finish when done creating users. At this point, the wizard ends and you’re ready to go.

Click Finish.

Step 25:

Now you should be presented with the Windows XP Welcome Screen for the first time. This will list all of the users you created if any extra where created on this page, as well as the user’s avatar beside their name, which you can change later.

When you click on a user name, that account will logon and you’ll be presented with the Windows XP desktop.

If you created passwords for each account, you’ll be asked to enter a password before you can logon to the Windows XP account.

Installation Complete:

Next installation tasks

Once Windows XP is installed, it’s time to perform a few post-installation tasks:

1. Check Device Manager and install any Device drivers you may have that are required.

2. Test your hardware devices.

3. Set up your user accounts.

4. Customise your system further, screensaver, desktop background or Windows XP Theme selection.

5. Install your Anti-Virus Program and run all updates to insure you have all the latest virus definetions.

6. Set up Automatic Updates.

7. Next Run Windows Updates, and install all Service Packs for Windows XP.

8. Defrag your system drive.

9. Install and run your software.

Windows XP is now installed and configured and ready to use.

I hope you find this tutorial useful, as it took me a few days to prepare a computer and do 2 different installs of Windows XP –– Pro and Home Edition to obtain the screen shots.

If you have any questions please post them in the comment section.

Shawn DesRochers

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Tags: windows xp home install, windows xp install, windows xp pro install, xp home install, xp install, xp pro install