Welcome back to IT free training course for Windows 7. In this video I will look at performing
a clean install of Windows 7. A clean install of Windows means basically
a fresh copy of Windows. In most cases you will perform the install on a hard disk that
does not contain an operating system. If however a Windows operating system is found, the old
Windows operating system will be moved to c colin back slash Windows dot old. This operating
system will no longer be bootable, but you can always retrieve files from the directory
later on if you require them. Later on in the course, I will go through
the upgrade paths to Windows 7. If no upgrade path is available you may need to perform
a clean install of Windows 7. For example if you are running window XP there is no upgrade
path to Windows 7. Once you have decided to perform a clean install
of Windows 7, you need to decide how to perform the install. Windows 7 can be installed in
a number of different ways with each method having its advantages. The simplest way is
by using the DVD. Using the DVD requires no infrastructure. If you only have a few installs
of Windows 7 to perform this is the best way. However if you have a lot of computers to
install Windows 7 on, this method may not be practical. Either way you will need to
make multiple copies of the DVD or you will only be able to perform one install at a time.
Next you can install Windows 7 from a USB flash drive. This does require some special
setup for the USB drive. However having the install files on a USB flash drive does allow
the install files be modified. For example adding drivers to the media. Using a flash
drive does require that the computer you are using support booting from a flash drive.
Most modern computers should support this requirement, however if you are using an older
computer you may have some problems. If you have a lot of computers to install
Windows 7 on, you may want to place the setup files on the network. From here, you can use
a Windows PE boot disk to access the files. Windows PE is a modern version of the old
M S dos boot disks. Using Windows PE, you can boot into a scaled down version of Windows
and run the Windows 7 setup program. For the enterprise you may want to consider
a more customizable solution. Microsoft offers Windows deployment services or WDS. WDS allows
you to install Windows 7 by booting from the network. This means that no software is required
on the local computer. WDS is very customizable so you can add software to your installs and
even automated the installs. The biggest disadvantage of WDS is that it requires a lot of infrastructure
to work. In order to use it you need to have installed active directory, DHCP and DNS.
The computer you are installing on to must support PXE booting. All network cards on
the market now days should have this feature. To start with, let's perform a clean install
of Windows 7 using the DNS. To boot off the DVD, first of all I am going
to enter the BIOS. On this computer I can do this by pressing F2. Once in the BIOS I
will enter the boot menu. From here I need to ensure that the CD ROM is above the hard
disk. On this computer, Windows XP is all ready installed on the hard disk. If I don't
change this option Windows will automatically boot off the hard disk and start Windows XP.
If the hard disk is empty, the bios will try to boot off the hard disk, fail and then move
onto the next device. Once I have made the change I can exit the
bios knowing next time the computer boots up it will first boot off the dvd. Notice
on this bios I also have the option to press escape to enter the boot menu. Most bios have
this option and by using it means you don't have to make any changes inside the bios.
The key you need to press is different on different bioses. The common ones are F 8,
F 10 and F 12. If a operating system is detected on the hard
disk you will get a prompt saying press any key to boot from CD or DVD. This is done by
Microsoft so that if you leave the DVD in the drive after installing Windows, it will
not attempt to install Windows again unless you press a key.
Windows will now boot into Windows PE, a scaled down bootable version of Windows which is
used to run the setup program. Once you are on the welcome screen, you can first choose
which language you want to use. On this DVD I can only choose English, your DVD may have
others. You can also choose the time and currency format. Lastly you can choose the keyboard
or input method. In this case I will accept all the defaults and move on.
On the next screen, notice you have the option at the bottom left, what to know before installing
Windows. Selecting this will launch a help file telling you more information about installing
Windows. The option below this, repair your computer, will launch a different menu which
will give you access to a number of tools to fix Windows. If for example, your Windows
system stops booting, using this option allows you to perform tasks like fixing the master
boot record. Once you are ready to install, press the install
now button. Next I will need to accept the license agreement. Once I have accepted the
license agreement I need to select which type of install I want to perform. The first option
is upgrade. In my opinion this should be grayed out because it is not available when you boot
from the DVD. If I were to select this option I would get a message telling me the upgrade
option is only available when setup is run from the operating system that you want to
upgrade from. To perform a clean install, select the option
custom advanced. The next screen will ask which hard disk you want to install the operating
system to. You will notice that I have a message saying no drives where found. If you are installing
on standard hardware like IDE or sata drives the hard disk should appear. In this case
my hard disk is connected by a SCSI adapter so I will need to select load a device driver.
This is common with this kind of hardware or when using RAID hardware.
Once I press load driver I need to browse to a location that contains the driver for
my hard disk. In this case I have copied the driver to a USB flash drive which appears
in this case as drive c. Once the driver has been loaded your hard disk should appear.
If I select the option "drive options advanced", you will notice some additional options will
appear. Since this hard disk contains an install of Windows XP already, the hard disk is already
formatted. If I wanted to partition the hard disk, that is use only part of the hard disk
for the operation system and then leave some space to be used later, I could perform this
using these options. If I select disk 1 partition 1 and press the
next button. You will notice that I will get a message stating a previous operation system
will be moved to c colon Windows dot old. Once I press o.k. the install will start.
Depending on the speed of your system the process may take anywhere up to 30 minutes
if not longer. Even though Microsoft have done a lot to speed up the process of installing
a new operating systems, I am sure that you don't want to wait that long so I have speed
up the process. You will notice now that you will get a prompt asking you to reboot. On
some installs of Windows 7 the system may reboot a few times during the install. Microsoft
have tried to reduce the number of reboots require during the install so hopefully you
won't get to many. On this computer, the system will reboot twice
before all the setup files are copied over. Once the reboots are complete, Windows will
start up and start running some performance tests. Windows will test your system and your
video card before asking you to enter in a username and a computer name. The user name
you enter here will become an administrator on the local system.
On the next screen I need to enter in a password for the user. With Windows 7 you now have
the option to enter in a password hint. This should be something to jog your memory if
you forget your password. On the next screen you can enter in a product key for Windows.
Without the product key, Windows will operate for 30 days before it will change to reduce
function mode. In reduced function mode you only have enough functionally to enter in
a product key and activate Windows, but not much else.
The tick box automatically activate Windows when I am online will automatically activate
Windows 7 3 days after you logon for the first time. I normally deselect this option in case
something goes wrong. Without this option ticked, you have 30 days to get Windows 7
working correctly. If you need to re-install Windows before then, you can do so without
penalty. On the next screen you can decide how Windows
updates will be installed. I will select the recommend settings, but this can be changed
at any time. On this screen you can set the time zone and the date. A lot of security
in active directory and the internet relies on the time being set correctly so you should
change it here if it is not correct. After you set the time, Windows will configure
your desktop and your new Windows 7 system is ready to go. If I open Windows explorer
you can see in the c drive the directory Windows dot old. Since Windows XP was installed on
this system before the I started the clean install, it has been moved into this directory.
It will not be bootable but you can go into and copy any files that you need. Once you
no longer need the files they can be deleted. This concludes how to perform a clean install
of Windows 7. In the next video I will look at different ways to install Windows 7 and
how to dual boot your system, that is how to install more than one operating system
on the same computer.