Format c: .. the lesser known parts of installing Windows

Well i never actually used the command "format" but read on you see why I didn't.Over the years I’ve come to realise that many people, even close friends in the IT industry simply don't know how to install the Windows (98, 200, XP...) or have some serious misconceptions about it. Windows after all is said and done is the most popular operating system in the world and has come a long way since it original inception. This isn’t to say that its doesn’t have its faults of which there is a very long serious list but if you were to compare Windows to other alternative, the economic and productivity factors would quickly bring you back to Mr Microsoft. Before I begin, I’d like to dispel several common myths about Windows with regards to its installation.

1.  A separate partition on the same physical hard disk for the swap file disk improves performance. This could be true but would require you to create that “swap partition” as the very first partition on the hard disk and also require you to calculate how big that partition is suppose to be based on prior computer usage and the current memory configuration. Let’s face it, whatever microscopic performance delta (probably only noticeable by some benchmark software) you do gain is lost by that fact that now all you binaries (programs) are pushed the further ends of the hard disk, which would have an impact on load times.
2. You have adopted the *inx way thinking when setting up the virtual memory which has a major down fall. Even though Windows is not using all the swap space, it is locked for its use. Making matters worse is the fact that people often don’t put the swap partition as the first partition so there is only a negative impact on the overall performance. Fragmentation is a thing of the past as there are many 3rd party utilities that can defragment your swap file for free! Here’s an example of my personal favourite, http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/PageDefrag.html
3. Partitions are a good thing. For crying out loud, that’s what folder/directories are for. This has been propagated by the media for years and by people who should know better to boot. Typical justification for partitions are backing up data and to better organise you data. First off, any part of you hard disk has an equal chance of failing so the fact that you portioned of a section doesn’t make it any less likely that the data is safe on the same physical drive and since the host operating system has control over all the partitions, there is an equal chance of the partitions getting corrupted. As far as organising data goes, what’s the difference between looking at several folders and several partitions? NONE! In fact, there are some down sides that I can think of off the top of my head. These are, the small over head by the operating system to manage several partitions, the collected wasted space at the end of the partition (many a times I’ve seen people wanting to copy a file but no single partition had sufficient free space yet the collective free space was enough) and the performance degradation incurred by the hard disk heads jumping from partition to partition in an attempted to access files and keep the now separate filing information up-to-date. Basically if you want to have backups, buy a good DVD burner and use the software for periodical backups. It’s safe, cheap and recovery is pretty fast.
   
4. Placing you windows folder in a different partition or renaming helps security. Boss man, if someone can get that far into your computer, then they already know to check the environmental settings to find out where you hide it. It’s a simple command… SET Here is blog that dedicated to some myths : http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/XPMyths.html.

You might have noticed that I repeated  swap file myths. I felt that enough can’t be said on it because some people are just hard headed. Now on to the meat! Do you know what you have? Many people want to install windows or reinstall windows on there computer but have no idea what parts make up their prised super charged over grown calculators. Needless to say this is a recipe for disaster. Typical components of a modern computer would be: • CPU/s • Mother board • Video card/s • RAM • Hard disk/s • NIC/s • Sound card/s • Optical drives • Modem/s • Keyboard • Mouse • Speakers Most if not all need to be identified by 1.brand and 2.model/partnumber. Why? One word…DRIVERS. Drivers are specialised software that gives you hardware functionality (aka make them work right). So before you get the hotts for installing Windows make sure you can correctly identify the hardware components and download the newest recommend drivers from their respective manufacture sites. From here on I will exclusively look at Windows XP since it’s pretty much the most common now but several of the steps apply to other windows versions. If windows is installed already, backup up you data on a discreet storage medium outside of you PC box. The reason for this is that whatever can go wrong will. We all know who said it. Now hit Windows key + Pause. This should bring up a System Properties window. Hit Hardware and the click Device managers. This should bring up list of the hardware so that you can now go driver hunting. Alternatively you can power down the PC (something I don’t ever like to do) pop open the case and look its contents for what you have. This would be a good time to clean it out as well. If you don’t know what your doing, don’t play hero-herolal. Backup up these drivers. Put the IDE drivers onto diskette. While you driver hunting you may notice that there are something called firmware and BIOS for several of you components. Get them! They are software that the hardware used to control the devices before windows drivers take control. Many work hand in hand with windows drivers. Make sure you also print a copy of the installation process for later reference. Also make note of what brand and type Hard disk you have. Many have specialised software to prepare your computer for the windows (or *inx) install. Almost forgot, Download the latest version of Autopatcher. Now that you have collected all the necessary stuff, it time to begin. Prepare the Hard disk software . 99% of the time it will require you to make a bootable floppy disk. If you one of those that gave up on floppies, here is a boot CD that should cover have the software already on it : http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ This ISO is an extremely powerful tool for use techies. Now proceed with the Firmware and BIOS updates. Remember the installation instruction I told you print out? I would go into this in detail but the process varies too much from brand, model and type of hardware. These would require several reboots. If this was done after windows was installed, you would notice windows detecting several new devices so that why I did it now to avoid the waste of time and possible performance hit. After you’re done updating the BIOS/firmware. Use the hard disk prep software or the ultimate boot CD to create a SINGLE large NTFS partition. Why use this software vs Widows? 2 reasons. I have seen Windows XP take a 250 GB drive and make it into a single 127 GB drive and for love of god, I didn’t know where the rest of space when. Secondly if Windows does recognise the hard disk properly, for some reason it always leaves 8MB space unused. It’s not much but WDF. I paid for that space and I want to use it. I purposely did not discuses RAID setup since only someone who know what their doing should handle this. Reboot the computer, boot from the XP CD and hit F6 when prompted to, pop in that IDE driver disk you made earlier, add that storage device and install windows on that good ole C: that the disk prep software created. Leave the files system intact. Complete the windows install. I usually use all the defaults except for the keyboard and advance text service. Now that windows is installed, it time install all those wonderful windows updates. Your thinking what shit I’m typing. Good! That means your paying attention. Typically people suggest that you install drivers here. This is where I disagree. Many windows driver require update before they work properly so that old school approach has to be thrown out the window. If Windows XP didn’t have SP2 slipstreamed into it, now is a good time to install SP2. Install the autopatcher after this. A quick read of the website should explain what it is but basically it’s a program that (thankfully) some dude put together that rolls all the post SP2 update into 1 simple patch. It’s not a service pack but its damd close. It also includes many third party utilities and tweaks that I a find useful. Don’t mess around with those unless you know what you’re doing but I can say the vast majority of them work well. Now that we got windows all patched up, its driver time. Install the drives in the following order : • Mother board/chipset • IDE/SCSI if separate from chipset • CPU • Video card/s • NIC/s • Sound card/s • Modem/s • Keyboard • Mouse Don’t ask questions just know that is the way to install it and yes some CPUs (AMD) require a driver to activate some power management features. That’s it! Finished….If you expecting more then that’s not installing windows.