Installation of Windows XP ( With Screen Shots)

Installation of Windows XP ( With Screen Shots)

Preparing for Installation:-

When you install Windows XP Professional, the Windows XP Professional Setup program

allows you to specify how to install and configure the operating system. Preparing

in advance helps you avoid problems during and after installation.

Overview of Preinstallation Tasks:-

Before you start the installation, you should complete the following tasks:

■ Ensure that your hardware meets the requirements for installing Windows XP Professional.

■ Determine whether your hardware is in the Windows Catalog.

■ Decide how you will partition the hard disk on which you will install Windows XP

Professional.

■ Choose a file system for the installation partition.

■ Determine whether your computer will join a domain or a workgroup.

■ Complete a preinstallation checklist.

Windows XP Professional Hardware Requirements:-

Before installing Windows XP Professional, you must determine whether your hardware

meets or exceeds the minimum requirements for installing and operating Windows

XP Professional as shown down

Central processing unit (CPU) -                 Pentium 233 megahertz (MHz) or equivalent.

Memory                                                    64 megabytes (MB) minimum;128 MB recommended; 4          

                                                                 gigabytes (GB) of random access memory (RAM) maximum.

Hard disk space                                        1.5 GB of free disk space for installing Windows XP Professional.        /                                                                You should also have several additional gigabytes of hard disk      

                                                                  space to allow for updates,additional Windows components,

                                                                  applications, and user data.

Networking                                                Network adapter card and a network cable, if necessary.

Display                                                       Video display adapter and monitor with Video Graphics Adapter

                                                                   (VGA) resolution or higher.

Other drives                                                CD-ROM drive, 12X or faster recommended (not required for         

                                                                   installing Windows XP Professional over a network), or DVD

                                                                   drive. High-density 3.5-inch disk drive as drive A, unless the

                                                                  computer supports starting the Setup program from a CD-ROM

                                                                  or DVD drive.

Accessories                                                Keyboard and  or other pointing device.

Now Installation Of Windows XP:-

All versions of Windows XP CD are bootable. In order to boot from CD/DVD-ROM you need to set the boot sequence. Look for the boot sequence under your BIOS setup and make sure that the first boot device is set to CD/DVD-ROM. You can then perform the following steps to install Windows XP:

Step 1 - Start your PC and place your Windows XP CD in your CD/DVD-ROM drive. Your PC should automatically detect the CD and you will get a message saying "Press any key to boot from CD". Soon as computer starts booting from the CD your will get the following screen:

Step 2 - At this stage it will ask you to press F6 if you want to install a third party Raid or SCSI driver. If you are using a an IDE Hard Drive then you do not need to press F6. If you are using a SCSI or SATA Hard drive then you must press F6 otherwise Windows will not detect your Hard Drive during the installation. Please make sure you have the Raid drivers on a floppy disk. Normally the drivers are supplied on a CD which you can copy to a floppy disk ready to be installed. If you are not sure how to do this then please read your motherboard manuals for more information.

Step 3 - Press S to Specify that you want to install additional device.

Step 4 - You will be asked to insert the floppy disk with the Raid or SCSI drivers. Press enter after you have inserted the disk.

Step 5 - You will see a list of Raid drivers for your HDD. Select the correct driver for your device and press enter.

Step 6 - You will then get a Windows XP Professional Setup screen. You have the option to do a new Windows install, Repair previous install or quit. Since we are doing a new install we just press Enter to continue.

Step 7 - You will be presented with the End User Licensing Agreement. Press F8 to accept and continue

Step 8 - This step is very important. Here we will create the partition where Windows will be installed. If you have a brand new unformatted drive you will get a screen similar to below. In our case the drive size is 8190MB. We can choose to install Windows in this drive without creating a partition, hence use the entire size of the drive. If you wish to do this you can just press enter and Windows will automatically partition and format the drive as one large drive.

However for this demonstration I will create two partition. The first partition will be 6000MB (C: drive) and second partition would be 2180MB (E: drive). By creating two partition we can have one which stores Windows and Applications and the other which stores our data. So in the future if anything goes wrong with our Windows install such as virus or spyware we can re-install Windows on C: drive and our data on E: drive will not be touched. Please note you can choose whatever size partition your like. For example if you have 500GB hard drive you can have two partition of 250GB each.

Press C to create a partition.

Step 8 - Windows will show the total size of the hard drive and ask you how much you want to allocate for the partition you are about to create. I will choose 6000MB. You will then get the screen below. Notice it shows C: Partition 1 followed by the size 6000 MB. This indicates the partition has been created. We still have an unpartitioned space of 2189MB. Next highlight the unpartitioned space by pressing down the arrow key. Then press C to create another partition. You will see the total space available for the new partition. Just choose all the space left over, in our case 2180MB.

Step 9 - Now you will see both partition listed. Partition 1 (C: Drive) 6000MB and Partition 2 (E: Drive) 2180MB. You will also have 8MB of unpartitioned space. Don't worry about that. Just leave it how its is. Windows normally has some unpartitioned space. You might wonder what happened to D: drive. Windows has automatically allocated D: drive to CD/DVD-ROM.

Select Partition 1 (C: Drive) and press Enter.

Step 10 - Choose format the partition using NTFS file system.This is the recommended file system. If the hard drive has been formatted before then you can choose quick NTFS format. We chose NTFS because it offers many security features, supports larger drive size, and bigger size files.

Windows will now start formatting drive C: and start copying setup files as shown on the two images below :

Step 11 - After the setup has completed copying the files the computer will restart. Leave the XP CD in the drive but this time DO NOT press any key when the message "Press any key to boot from CD" is displayed. In few seconds setup will continue. Windows XP Setup wizard will guide you through the setup process of gathering information about your computer.

Step 12 - Choose your region and language.

Step 13 - Type in your name and organization.

Step 14. Enter your product key.

Step 15 - Name the computer, and enter an Administrator password. Don't forget to write down your Administrator password.

Step 16 - Enter the correct date, time and choose your time zone.

Step 17 - For the network setting choose typical and press next.

Step 18 - Choose workgroup or domain name. If you are not a member of a domain then leave the default settings and press next. Windows will restart again and adjust the display.

Step 19 - Finally Windows will start and present you with a Welcome screen. Click next to continue.

Step 20 - Choose 'help protect my PC by turning on automatic updates now' and press next.

Step 21 - Will this computer connect to the internet directly, or through a network? If you are connected to a router or LAN then choose: 'Yes, this computer will connect through a local area network or home network'. If you have dial up modem choose: 'No, this computer will connect directly to the internet'. Then click Next.

Step 22 - Ready to activate Windows? Choose yes if you wish to active Windows over the internet now. Choose no if you want to activate Windows at a later stage.

Step 23 - Add users that will sign on to this computer and click next.

Step 24 - You will get a Thank you screen to confirm setup is complete. Click finish.

Step 25. Log in, to your PC for the first time.

Step 26 - You now need to check the device manager to confirm that all the drivers has been loaded or if there are any conflicts. From the start menu select Start -> Settings -> Control Panel. Click on the System icon and then from the System Properties window select the Hardware tab, then click on Device Manager.

If there are any yellow exclamation mark "!" next to any of the listed device, it means that no drivers or incorrect drivers has been loaded for that device. In our case we have a Video Controller (VGA card) which has no drivers installed.

Your hardware should come with manufacturer supplied drivers. You need to install these drivers using the automatic setup program provided by the manufacturer or you need to manually install these drivers. If you do not have the drivers, check the manufacturers website to download them.

To install a driver manually use the following procedure:

(a) From the device manager double click on the device containing the exclamation mark.

(b) This would open a device properties window.

(c) Click on the Driver tab.

(d) Click Update Driver button. The Wizard for updating device driver pops up as shown below:

You now get two options. The first option provides an automatic search for the required driver. The second option allows you to specify the location of the driver. If you don't know the location of the driver choose the automatic search which would find the required driver from the manufacturer supplied CD or Floppy disk. Windows would install the required driver and may ask you to restart the system for the changes to take affect. Use this procedure to install drivers for all the devices that contain an exclamation mark. Windows is completely setup when there are no more exclamation marks in the device manager.

Tower or Desktop Case

Tower or Desktop Case

A desktop or tower case is required to hold all your components together. It is your personal preference on which one you decide to choose. Desktop or tower cases come in standard ATX form factor. You can find them in many different design & sizes. The most common sizes are Mini, Midi and Full tower. Most budget cases come with PSU (Power Supply Unit) but most of the premium cases don't come with PSU which has to be purchased separately. The case below is an ATX Midi Tower case.

To decide if you need a mini, midi, or a full tower case you need to ask yourself how many hard drives, dvd-rom etc you need to fit in the case. The bigger the case, the more bays you will have for your drives and peripherals. If you are building a pc which has to be small as possible and you are planning to buy a Micro ATX Motherboard then go for a Mini Tower case.

Note, if the case is really small and cramped then it will have less air flow, which means the case temperature would be higher than having a larger case with good air flow. This could lead to an unstable PC.

Mother Board

Mother Board

A motherboard is a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) that connects your processor, memory and all your expansion cards together to assemble a PC. Most motherboards made nowadays are ATX. An ATX motherboard has the standard I/O (Input/Output) connectors such as PS/2 ports, USB ports, parallel port, serial port, etc, built onto the motherboard. ATX motherboard fits into a standard ATX case. The following is a picture of a Modern ATX motherboard.

As you can see from the image, the motherboard comes with various expansion card slots and connectors. It comes with 4 different expansion slots, 2 PCI and 2 PCI Express slot.

The PCI slot is where you would connect cards such as sound card, modem, tv card etc.

The PCI Express slot is where you would connect a PCI-E graphics card. This particular motherboard allows to have two different graphics cards in a SLI or Crossfire configuration.

The other connectors includes Intel LGA 1366 Socket, DDR3 Memory slots, ATX 2.0 24pin power connector. SATA connector for connecting your Hard drive, DVD-ROM etc.

Processor

Processor

The processor also known as CPU (Central Processing Unit) is the brain of a computer. The faster the processor, the faster it will execute instructions and run your programs. The leading Processor manufactures are Intel and AMD. Whichever manufacturer you decide to choose you will have to make sure that you purchase a compatible motherboard.

Nowadays Intel and AMD have stopped the GHz race and concentrated on how many cores they can fit in each CPU. So having a 3 GHz single core CPU is not better that having 2.4 GHz Dual Core CPU. Nowadays a CPU is judged on how many cores it has. The more cores it has the better it is.

Memory DDR2/DDR3 RAM

Memory DDR2/DDR3 RAM

Memory is the name given to silicon chips that stores volatile computer data. Volatile means that the contents of memory will be lost if the power of the computer is switched off. Memory stores some of your operating system and application data while it is being run. The more memory you have in your system, the more application you can run simultaneously and will provide an overall better system performance.

Memory comes in many form. The older systems use SDRAM, while the current systems use DDR2 or DDR3 SDRAM (Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory).

Depending on the motherboard you choose you need to select the matching compatible memory. For example if you buy an Intel motherboard for an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU then it will support Dual-channel DDR2 800, 667 or 533. Therefore you can buy any DDR2 memory at those speeds. However DDR2-800 memory will run the CPU bus at the optimal speed while slower memory are backward compatible. It is recommended that you get the highest memory speed your motherboard supports if you want the maximum performance. If you are on a budget then slower speed memory would be sufficient. Please note, DDR-2 memory must be run in pairs to run at double data rate. So if you decide to get 2GB of memory then you need to buy 2 x 1GB modules. It is also best to get both pairs of memory from the same manufacturer to avoid incompatibility.

Most AMD Athlon 64 X2 and Phenom processors also support DDR-2 at speeds mentioned above.

If you have the latest Intel i7 motherboard then you will need a triple-channel DDR3 1600, 1333, or 1066.

It is always best to ask your retailer or check the manufactures website to make sure that your chosen memory is compatible with your chosen motherboard. Some of the well known memory manufactures are Crucial, Kingston, Corsair, and Samsung. The following list shows all the current types of DDR2 and DDR3 memory.

DDR2 Memory:

Memory name	I/O Bus Speed	Module name
DDR2-400	200 MHz	PC2-3200
DDR2-533	266 MHz	PC2-4200
DDR2-667	333 MHz	PC2-5300
DDR2-800	400 MHz	PC2-6400
DDR2-1066	533 MHz	PC2-8500

DDR3 Memory:

Memory name	I/O Bus speed	Module name
DDR3-800	400 MHz	PC3-6400
DDR3-1066	533 MHz	PC3-8500
DDR3-1333	667 MHz	PC3-10600
DDR3-1600	800 MHz	PC3-12800

Graphic Card

Graphics Card

Graphics card provides display output to your monitor. There are many graphics card manufactures out there who release a new card into the market nearly every three to six months as it is one of the most competitive hardware market. While choosing a graphics card consider what you would be using it for. For 2D applications such as word-processing, spreadsheet etc, a basic graphics card with around 64MB or 128MB video memory will be sufficient for your needs. It will also allow you to run your monitor at various resolutions.

However, if you require 3D functionality for running 3D applications or playing 3D games you will require a 3D graphics card with at least 256MB or even 512MB of video memory.

You can buy graphics card with a PCI , AGP or PCI-Express bus. However, most current motherboards have PCI-Express and few have AGP slot. You should therefore use an AGP or PCI-E graphics card if your motherboard has an AGP or PCI-E slot.

PCI Express graphics card offers much higher graphics bandwidth which results in higher performance. You are recommended to buy a motherboard with a PCI-Express port so that you can use a PCI-Express graphics card. The current top end graphics card are made by Nvidia (Geforce cards) and ATI (Radeon cards).