Installing the Operating System

In almost every situation, a laptop computer already has an operating system installed when you receive it. However, if you perform a hard disk upgrade or if you want to wipe out the contents of the existing drive and reinstall Windows, you might need to install or reinstall the operating system.

If you are using a non-Windows operating system, follow the documentation for the installation procedures.

On a newer system in which you are installing an OEM version of Windows XP (which comes on a bootable CD), there isn't really anything you need to do, other than simply boot from the CD (you might have to enable the CD-ROM as a boot device in your BIOS Setup) and follow the prompts to install the OS. Windows XP automatically recognizes that the drive needs to be partitioned and the partitions are formatted before the installation can proceed. Additionally, if you prefer, Windows XP can execute these functions for you, with prompts guiding you along the way. This is the method I recommend for most people because it is relatively simple and straightforward.

If your laptop's operating system comes on a recovery CD, booting from the recovery CD usually brings up a menu that lets you select whether you want to repair your existing Windows installation or reinstall Windows and the computer's original applications.

Caution

Using a product recovery or restore CD instead of a plain Windows CD to reinstall Windows and the computer's original applications wipes out the existing installation, so be sure to back up all data and configuration files (such as website favorites and email accounts) you want to keep before you use the restore CD. If the computer doesn't include a product recovery or restore CD (or a plain Windows CD), it might have a hidden disk partition or hidden protected area (HPA) that contains Windows files that can be used to rebuild the system's original configuration. See the system's instruction manual or online help to determine how to use the files in a hidden partition or HPA.

Installing Windows 98/Me

Older laptop systems (pre-Windows Me or 2000) may not have the necessary recommended system requirements to run the latest version of Windows. The recommended system requirements for installing Windows XP Professional, for instance, are as follows:

• 300 MHz or faster processor (233MHz minimum)

• 128MB RAM (64MB RAM is supported, but is not recommended)

• 1.5GB hard drive space

Of course, it is better that your system's configuration exceed these specifications. However, given at least a 300MHz system with 128MB, I"d recommend installing XP or Win2000 over Win98 or Me. I recently did some testing of XP installations on older, slower hardware and was frankly both surprised and impressed at how well it performed for basic tasks, even on a minimal configuration. Still, performance will be increased noticeably by upgrading to at least 256MB.

If your laptop does not meet the 300MHz processor and 128MB RAM requirements, you should consider installing Windows 98SE (second edition) or Windows Me instead. Note that Windows 95 is not recommended at all due to a lack of features and capabilities compared to 98SE. Since virtually any system capable of running Windows 95 should be capable of running Windows 98 as well, I highly recommend you install Windows 98SE instead of Windows 95 wherever possible. With updates and support coming from Microsoft through 2006, Windows 98SE is still a viable and useful OS for systems that do not meet the requirements of XP.

Partitioning and Formatting the Drive with Windows 98/Me

The first step when installing Windows 98/Me is to partition and format the hard drive using a Windows 98 or Me startup disk (floppy). The OEM versions of these operating systems included both a bootable CD as well as a startup disk floppy. If you don"t have the floppy, you can use any system currently running Windows 98 or Me to create a startup floppy using the following procedure:

1.	In Control Panel, double-click Add/Remove Programs and then click the Startup Disk tab.
2.	Click Create Disk and then follow the instructions on the screen.

Tip

If you are unable to locate a Windows 98 or Me startup disk, or a system running Windows 98 or Me where you can create one, check out the website www.bootdisk.com. This site has a number of startup floppy images that you can download and use to create your own startup disks. Also, another site called www.cdrom-drivers.com has pointers to an enormous library of CD-ROM device drivers, including the AOATAPI.SYS driver, which works with most desktop and notebook CD-ROM and DVD drives.

Note that for the purposes of installing either Windows 98 or Windows Me, the startup disks are fully interchangeable. That means you can use a Windows 98 startup floppy to install Windows Me, or a Windows Me startup floppy to install Windows 98. Given a choice, I recommend the Windows Me startup floppy because the FDISK command on that disk has fixes to support hard drives larger than 64GiB. You can also download an updated version of FDISK with the same fixes for Windows 98 from Microsoft at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/263044. You will need to copy the updated FDISK to your Windows 98 startup floppy if you will be using it to partition drives larger than 64GiB.

To prepare the hard disk, boot from the Windows 98/Me startup floppy. Normally, you will be greeted with the following choices:

 1. Start computer with CD-ROM support. 2. Start computer without CD-ROM support. 

Since you are only preparing the hard disk at this time and will not need any files off the CD, select the option without CD-ROM support for the fastest boot. At the A:> prompt, type the following command:

 FDISK 

This command is used to partition your drive. Follow the menus to first remove any existing partitions (all data they contain will be lost) and then create either a single partition for the entire drive or multiple partitions as you desire. Usually, the first partition must also be made active, which means it will be bootable. If your drive is over 512MiB, I recommend you answer Yes to the following prompt:

 Do you wish to enable large disk support (Y/N)? 

This enables the partition to be created using the FAT32 file system, which is more efficient and robust than FAT16 for larger partitions, and also supports volume sizes of up to 2TiB, where FAT16 is limited to only 2GiB volumes. Then, if you are installing to a blank drive, I recommend you continue accepting default entries for all the prompts, which will partition the drive as a single bootable volume that covers the entire drive.

When the partitioning is complete, exit FDISK and restart the system.

Note

For more information about FDISK and file systems, see Chapter 9, "Hard Disk Storage."

When rebooting from the startup floppy, select the option to start the computer with CD-ROM support because you will need to copy files from the CD after formatting the boot volume. If you created more than one partition with FDISK, you will need to format only the first (C:) partition to complete the installation; the others can be formatted later. The first partition is formatted using the FORMAT command as follows:

 FORMAT C: 

All other partitions would be formatted in the same manner; however, I recommend you do that later, after Windows has been installed.

After the FORMAT command completes, you are ready to install Windows.

Note

Drive installation, setup, and formatting are covered extensively in Chapter 9.

While Windows 98 and Windows Me can be installed directly from their respective installation CDs, note that only the OEM CDs are bootable; the Retail and Upgrade CDs are not bootable. This means that even if your system has bootable CD-ROM support (that is, most systems from 1998 and newer), you will still need a Windows 98 or Me startup floppy to install the Retail or Upgrade versions of Windows 98 or Me. And even if you do have an OEM version of 98/Me on a bootable CD, it is actually much better to first boot from a startup floppy, copy the installation files from the CD to the hard disk, and then run the install directly from the hard disk instead. This will not only make future re-installs much easier, but any time you want to add an optional Windows component or install a device that needs a driver from the original installation files, you won't need to locate and insert your original Windows CD.

After the C: partition has been created and freshly formatted, you can use the following procedure to install the OS:

1.	Place the Windows 98 or Me startup floppy in the floppy drive and the original Windows installation CD in the CD/DVD drive; then restart the system.
2.	At the startup menu, choose the option to start the computer with CD-ROM support.
3.	If you are starting from a standard Windows 98 or Me startup floppy, the startup routine will create a RAMdisk in which to uncompress and store additional utility programs called diagnostic tools. When the boot process finishes, you should see a message like this on the screen: The diagnostic tools were successfully loaded to drive D. MSCDEX Version 2.25 Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp. 1986-1995. All rights reserved. Drive E: = Driver MSCD001 unit 0 This message indicates that the RAMdisk containing the diagnostic tools is drive D: and the CD-ROM (or DVD) drive is E:. In this scenario, the floppy drive is A: and the freshly formatted hard disk partition is C:. Note that the remainder of this procedure assumes that the CD drive letter is "E:." You should substitute the actual letter of your CD drive (as shown in the preceding message) if it is different.
4.	At the A:> prompt, create a new folder in C: called \WIN98 (for Windows 98) or \WIN9X (for Windows Me) using one of the following commands, depending on which OS you are installing: For Windows 98, type MD C:\WIN98 For Windows Me, type MD C:\WIN9X
5.	Copy all the files in the installation folder on the CD to the folder you just created on the hard disk using one of the following commands, depending on which OS you are installing (substitute the letter for your CD/DVD drive if it is different from E): For Windows 98, type COPY E:\WIN98 C:\WIN98 For Windows Me, type COPY E:\WIN9X C:\WIN9X
6.	Change the prompt to the hard drive using the following command: C:
7.	Change to the directory where you previously copied the installation files: For Windows 98, type CD \WIN98 For Windows Me, type CD \WIN9X
8.	Remove both the floppy disk and installation CD from their drives and begin the actual OS installation from the hard disk using the following command: SETUP This starts the Windows installation SETUP program. From here, you can follow the prompts to install Windows as you see fit.

This procedure will normally take 45 minutes or more, so be prepared to spend the time. During the installation, you will need to answer a few questions and provide your product key, which you can find on the Certificate of Authenticity sticker that is either included on the Windows installation package or attached to the case of your system. You should also have handy any driver disks for your hardware, because during the OS installation, you will be installing not only Windows but also the drivers for any hardware detected during the installation process.

Note

If you want to create a bootable CD containing your Windows installation files, see Chapter 10, "Removable Storage."

After Windows is installed, you can install any additional drivers or application programs you want. At this point, your system should be fully operational.

Installing Windows XP

If you are installing Windows XP on a laptop that has the "Designed for Windows XP" logo printed on it or if the system originally came with Windows XP preloaded on it, you should be able to install the operating system without encountering any hardware incompatibilities. Before you start an installation of XP, I recommend checking for an updated motherboard BIOS from the system manufacturer. It is not uncommon for a system to have an updated BIOS that is required for proper support of Windows XP.

You can perform an upgrade installation of Windows XP on a laptop that is running Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT Workstation 4 (Service Pack 6), or Windows 2000 Professional. However, you will usually encounter fewer problems and achieve better performance by doing a clean install. This is particularly true if you are installing Windows XP from the backup disk that was provided by the manufacturer of your laptop; these disks usually contain other software programs that are installed when Windows is installed.

Windows XP Setup gives you the option to remove/create partitions and format the hard drive before proceeding with the installation. Unless you absolutely need to keep existing software programs or files intact on the laptop, you should first remove any existing partitions and then repartition and format the drive from scratch. This will give you a clean installation.

You can also choose to create a multiboot system by installing Windows XP on a machine that already has an older version of Windows (9x, Me, NT, 2000) installed on it. To do this, you must have each Windows installation on a separate partition. This option is more commonly used on desktop computers than it is on laptop systems.

Note

It is possible to multiboot Windows XP with other operating systems, such as Linux. For more information on creating a multiboot system with Windows XP, read "Multibooting with Windows XP" at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/multiboot.mspx.

All of the Windows XP CDs are bootable, and any system capable of running XP should be able to boot from a CD as well, so you generally don't need a startup floppy during the installation. The entire installation can be done from the bootable Windows XP installation CD.

The easiest way to proceed with a clean install is to boot from the Windows XP CD directly. Windows Setup will start in text mode, copy files to the laptop, walk you through the process of partitioning and formatting the hard drive, and then proceed to the graphical phase of installation. You will be prompted to enter information concerning regional settings, networking components, the computer name you wish to use, and an administrator password. Also during the process, you will be asked to type in the 25-digit product key, which you can find on the Certificate of Authenticity label on either the Windows package or on the case of your system.

When Windows Setup is complete, you will be asked to activate your copy of Windows XP. Windows Product Activation is an antipiracy feature that was introduced with the release of Windows XP. Activation can be accomplished very quickly if you have an active Internet connection; optionally, you can call a toll-free number and receive an activation code over the phone. You have 30 days to activate Windows XP after setup is finished.

Installing Important Drivers

After installing the operating system, the first thing you need to do is to install drivers for devices where drivers were not found on the Windows CD. This often includes things such as chipset drivers for your motherboard, drivers for newer video chips, USB 2.0 drivers, and more. Of these, the motherboard chipset drivers are the most critical and should be installed first. If your version of Windows didn't include these drivers, download them from your laptop vendor and put them on a CD or floppy disk. Then, install other drivers if they're not already installed, such as video, network, modem, and so on.

See Chapter 16, "Problem Solving and Troubleshooting," to learn how to determine which drivers you need and where to obtain them.

Windows XP Updates and Service Packs

Microsoft frequently publishes new updates for Windows in order to fix software bugs, address security issues, and add new functionality to the operating system. Over time, these various updates are bundled into collections known as Service Packs.

When Service Packs are installed (or built in to new Windows installation disks), the version of the Service Pack is incorporated into the version name of the Windows software. For example, Microsoft published Service Pack 2 for Windows XP in the summer of 2004. If you install this Service Pack, the version of Windows on your system is known as Windows XP Service Pack 2, more commonly abbreviated to Windows XP SP2.

In the past, you were required to keep up with which Service Pack you had installed on your system. You also needed to manually download and install new updates and Service Packs as they were made available.

With Windows XP, you can take advantage of a feature called Automatic Updates. With Automatic Updates, you can tell the operating system to periodically check for new updates and Service Packs, and have Windows notify you when they are made available. You can even configure this feature to automatically download updates and, if desired, have the operating system automatically install them. You can configure all of the available options for Automatic Updates by opening the System applet in the Windows Control Panel and clicking on the Automatic Updates tab.

Depending on when you purchased your laptop (or when you purchased your copy of Windows XP), you may already have the most recent Service Pack integrated or slipstreamed into your Windows XP installation CD.

Linux on the Laptop

Although not many notebook manufacturers will preload Linux on their machines, this hasn't stopped users of the open source operating system from running it on their laptops.

Several Linux companies offer information on laptop systems that are compatible with their versions of Linux. Red Hat (www.redhat.com) has an online hardware catalog that lists systems it has tested and ""certified"" for use with Red Hat Linux. Novell has partnered with a number of hardware manufacturers for its Novell Linux Desktop (www.novell.com/products/desktop/), which is based on SUSE Linux and runs on a number of IBM ThinkPad models. Debian (www.debian.org) offers a list of global vendors that will preinstall Debian Linux on new systems. And, if you"re looking for a solution direct from the laptop vendor, you can visit http://tuxmobil.org/reseller.html to view an international survey of vendors who offer preinstalled Linux laptops.

As with most things concerning open source software, the best information on installing and running Linux on laptops is found within the Linux community of users and programmers. One of the best online resources is TuxMobil (http://tuxmobil.org). This site contains over 4,000 links relevant to Linux installations on laptops and also provides hardware compatibility lists (HCLs) for laptop hardware and accessories, as well as a comprehensive Linux Mobile Guide that covers almost all aspects of Linux and mobile computing.