The Windows Vista Installation Process

The installation process for Windows Vista is probably the easiestand, certainly, the least interactiveWindows install to date. Upgrading takes just a few mouse clicks, and even a clean install is a simple affair, although it does come with some welcome new tools for managing partitions.

Before going through the process, it's important to mention here that with Windows Vista, there's no longer a major distinction between upgrade installs and clean installs. In the past, you had a big decision to make before installing a new operating system:

• Do I upgrade over my existing OS, thus ensuring that my settings, customizations, programs, and documents remain in place?

• Do I back up my files, wipe the hard drive, and install the new OS on the clean partition, thus ensuring that the new system is free of any baggage from the old OS?

You no longer have to make this choice with Vista because every Vista install is a clean install. Even if you choose the upgrade path, Vista's Setup program puts all your settings, programs, and documents aside; wipes the partition; installs Vista; and then restores your settings, programs, and documents. The old method of doing a clean OS install was known as a wipe-and-load install. With a Vista upgrade, however, you now do a wipe-and-reload install.

After the Setup program boots from the disc, it copies a file named boot.wim (located in the \sources subfolder on the Vista disc) into RAM. This file is a scaled-down OS called the Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) that boots after a few seconds, so the rest of the install takes place in GUI mode. Windows PE begins by displaying the window shown in Figure 2.4, which acts as kind of a Welcome screen for Windows PE.

Figure 2.4. This window is the first stop in the Windows Vista installation process, which uses a GUI for all user interaction.

Click to get the install underway. At this point, you are running in the Windows PE OS. The next major screen asks for your Windows Vista product key; then the installer displays the license agreement and asks whether you accept its terms. The install program next asks you what type of installation you want to perform. You have two choices, as shown in Figure 2.5:

• Upgrade Click this choice to upgrade Vista over your existing operating system, which preserves your existing settings and configuration.

• Custom Click this choice to install a clean version of Vista.

Figure 2.5. You can install Vista either as an upgrade or as a clean version.

Tip

When Windows PE is running, you can display the command line at any time by pressing Shift+F10.

If you choose the Custom option, you come to the most interesting part of the setup process. The installer begins by showing you a list of your system's available partitions, and you click the one on which you want to install Vista. The real install fun begins if you click the Drive Options (Advanced) link (which appears for only unformatted partitions). As you can see in Figure 2.4, depending on the partition, one or more of the following commands become available:

• Delete Click this command to delete the selected partition.

• Format Click this command to format the selected partition. Note that the installer formats the partition using NTFS.

• New Click this command to create a new partition out of the selected unallocated disk space. As shown in Figure 2.6, this displays a spin that you can use to set the partition size. Click Apply to create the new partition.

  Figure 2.6. The installer gives you a number of options for manipulating the partition on which you want to install Windows Vista.

  

• Extend Click this command to increase the size of the selected partition by extended it into adjoining unallocated disk space.

• Load Driver Click this command to load a third-party device driver for the selected partition. Note that Vista can install the drivers from a CD, DVD, or USB Flash drive.

Clicking Next here ends the interactive portion of the installation. From here on, the installer handles everything from copying files to rebooting the machine without prompting you.

When the installation is complete, the Set Up Windows dialog box appears and you're taken through a few dialog boxes to configure Vista. Configuration chores include the following:

• Specifying your country or region and the keyboard layout you prefer

• Typing a username, password (twice), and password hint, as well as selecting an initial picture for this user account

• Typing a computer name and selecting a desktop background (see Figure 2.7)

  Figure 2.7. Part of the Vista configuration process includes typing a name for your computer and choosing a desktop background.

  

• Specifying how Vista should handle updates

• Setting the date, time, and time zone