Additional Preparations for Installation

Wanna have a smoooooth operating system installation? Do the following first :

• Add enough RAM to the system to meet (good) or surpass (much better) the minimum requirements. More RAM also helps improve the speed of installation, especially after the graphics mode portion of the install starts.

• Disable antivirus settings in the system BIOS; sometimes this is referred to as write-protect boot sector . These settings can stop your upgrade in its tracks when it's time to change the boot sector. Re-enable them after installation (see Figure 16.3).

  Figure 16.3. BIOS options that might need to be changed in some systems before installing Windows. This system's options are configured correctly.

  

• Change the boot order in the BIOS (if necessary) to put the CD-ROM (optical) drive before the hard disk if you can boot from your operating system CD (see Figure 16.3).

• Make sure the Plug and Play (PnP) operating system setting is enabled in the system BIOS for all versions except Windows NT 4.0 (which is the last non-PnP version of Windows). See Chapters 6, "BIOS and CMOS Configuration," and 19, "Installing and Configuring Hardware in Windows," for details.

• Scan the Windows CD-ROM and boot floppy media for viruses. Remove any viruses found on magnetic media. Contact Microsoft for a replacement if you find a virus on a Windows CD (hey, it could happen!).

• Scan your computer for viruses and remove any viruses found.

• Locate your previous version of Windows media if you are installing an upgrade version to an empty drive. The installation program will ask for media to verify you are eligible for the upgrade. Note that compliance checks might not work if you try to use a recovery disk version of Windows (often used by OEMs, such as Compaq and Gateway).

• Back up the hard disk that will be used for the installation if it contains data you want to retain. Existing data will be lost when the hard disk is formatted or partitioned. Even if you are going to perform a dual-boot installation (which uses empty space for the new operating system), back up the drive anyway as a safeguard against user or system error. If a full hard drive backup isn't possible, back up data files to avoid data loss in case of a problem with the upgrade. For maximum safety, use the byte-by-byte verify option during backup if available, and test the backup by restoring some files to an empty hard drive or empty folder.

• Locate or prepare a boot disk suitable for preparing the hard disk if your version of Windows or computer doesn't support booting from the CD, and prepare the hard disk as discussed in Chapter 15. Make sure the drive is backed up first if it contains data you want to keep.

• Make sure you have the product key (CD key) for the Windows media you want to install.

tip

If you don't have the product key anymore, you can retrieve the product key used for an existing installation from the Windows Registry.

Go to http://personal-computer-tutor.com/abc2/v15/vic15.htm for a roundup of methods for Windows 9x/Me/2000/XP. Get downloadable utilities for retrieving the product key from http://www.angelfire.com/va3/vic3/winkeys.htm.

Keep in mind that these methods retrieve the key from an installed copy of Windowsnot from the media!