Lesson 2 - Installing Windows 7

Before installing Windows 7 or any operating system for that matter there are some fundamental questions that need to be answered. Such as:

• What operating system to purchase?
• Will the hardware support the new operating system?
• Will the new operating system support the existing applications?
• Should I perform an upgrade or a clean installation?

These are just a few that need to be answered, however if you can perform a clean installation it will achieve the best possible performance. This is because you are installing the operating system files on a blank disk which are un-fragmented.

With the new boot environment Windows 7 has eliminated DOS from the installation process. The MS-DOS boot was necessary because the computer required an operating system to run the installation program and gain access to the disk drives. However with the introduction of Windows PE it includes Windows Preinstallation Environment 3.0.

Windows PE 3.0 is a bare bones operating system, based on the Windows 7 kernel. The following are distinct advantages to Windows PE 3.0:

• Native 32-bit or 64-bit support
• Native 32-bit or 64-bit driver support
• Internal networking support
• Internal NTFS support
• Scripting Language support
• Flexible boot options

Because Windows PE was never intended to function as a full time operating system there are some inherent limitations. Windows PE does not support the entire collection of Win32 APIs as a full installation of Windows 7 does.

The chapter goes through how to perform a clean installation, installing third party Device Drivers, working with Installation partitions, and using Windows Easy Transfer. The last portion is about Upgrading Windows 7 and performing a dual boot installation.

I found the chapter to have a lot of good information. The material was presented systematically with a lot of notes and examples. It was a good foundation chapter.      

Chapter 1 – Introducing Windows 7

This chapter was very informative regarding all the new features and understanding Windows 7 system requirements. It covers the six different windows editions along with running the upgrade advisor. Microsoft has made manipulating windows much easier by adding the following enhancements: Aero Snap, Aero Shake, Aero Peek, and Aero task switching. These will enable you to move and re-size windows as needed. There are many new improvements such as federated search, vpn reconnect, group policy, readyboost, action center, branchcache, problem steps recorder to name few. These new additions will help users when they encounter problems by recording keystrokes and mouse movements that lead to errors, thereby simplifying troubleshooting. The VPN reconnect will enable a remote computer to automatically re-establish a connection to a VPN server. With the federated search it will enable users to perform searches on Windows SharePoint sites, Internet, and specific Internet site right from the Windows Explore interface. This is only a few of the may improvements that are taking place with Windows 7.

I found the chapter to be very informative along with the many charts and diagrams. I thought it had a systematic and logical approach in its presentation. It was good foundation material.