during a standard installation process.

You can create unattended answer les using Windows System Image Manager, which is provided in the Windows Deployment Toolkit (available at www.download.microsoft.com). To take unattended setup a step further, you can use Windows Deployment Services, as discussed in Chapter 2. The standard setup program for Windows 7 is Setup.exe. You can run Setup.exe from the Windows operating system to upgrade the current version or to install Windows 7 to a different partition. On BIOS-based (x86) systems, you can boot from the distribution media to initiate the setup process. On IA64 Itanium-based systems, you start Setup through the EFI shell by running the \IA64\Setupldr.e Setup boot loader on the DVD (or the equivalent). Other than the partitioning method, Setup for an IA64 system works the same as for the 32-bit x86 and 64-bit x64 versions. When you are working with Windows 7 on x86-based systems, you should be aware of the special types of drive sections used by the operating system.

Active The active partition or volume is the drive section for system cache and startup. Some removable media devices may be listed as having an active partition. Boot The boot partition or volume contains the operating system and its support les. The system and boot partition or volume can be the same. System The system partition or volume contains the hardware-specic les needed to load the operating system. As part of software conguration, the system partition or volume cant be part of a striped or spanned volume.

Partitions and volumes are essentially the same thing. Two different terms are used at times, however, because you create partitions on basic disks and you create volumes on dynamic disks. On an x86-based computer, you can mark a partition as active by using the Disk Management snap-in. Although the active, boot, and system volumes or partitions can be the same, each is required nonetheless. When you install Windows 7, the Setup program assesses all the hard disk drive resources available. Typically, Windows 7 puts boot and system les on the same drive and partition and marks this partition as the active partition. The advantage of this conguration is that you dont need multiple drives for the operating system and can use an additional drive as a mirror of the operating system partitions. There are a number of differences when installing to the IA64 Itanium-based hardware platform. The IA64 Extended Firmware Interface starts up by loading a rmware-based boot menu. IA64 disks have a partition structure, called a globally unique identier (GUID) partition table, or GPT. This partition structure differs substantially from the 32-bit platform MBRbased partitions. GPTbased disks have two required partitions and one or more optional (OEM or data) partitions (up to 128 total):

EFI system partition (ESP) Microsoft reserved partition (MSR) At least one data partition
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The IA64 boot menu presents a set of options, one of which is the EFI shell. The EFI shell provides an operating environment supporting the FAT and FAT32 le systems, as well as conguration and le management commands. To view a list of partitions on an IA64-based computer, use the Map command. In the output of the Map command, blk designates partition blocks and fs# designates readable le systems. You can change to a partition by entering the partition block number followed by a colon. Type dir to view les in the partition. EFI has a boot maintenance manager that allows you to congure the boot menu. As discussed in Chapter 2, when you install Windows 7, the Setup program will automatically create a Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) partition and install additional components that can be used for recovery and troubleshooting in that partition. As a result, the Windows recovery tools are always available on computers running Windows 7. These tools include:

Startup Repair Repairs problems that prevent Windows from starting. If the boot manager or a corrupted system le is preventing startup, the tool is started automatically and will initiate repair of the computer. System Restore Restores Windows to a state at an earlier point in time. If a conguration change or application installation is preventing startup and restore points are available, you can use this feature to restore Windows to a state prior to the change. System Image Recovery Performs a full recovery of the computer by using a system image created previously. If Startup Repair, System Restore, and other troubleshooting techniques fail to restore the computer and you have a system image for recovery, you can use this feature to restore the computer from the backup image. Windows Memory Diagnostics Performs diagnostics on the computers memory. If memory hardware errors are causing startup or other problems with the computer, you can use this tool to identify the problem.

As an administrator, you can use these tools to recover computers. If a remote user cant start Windows, you can talk the user through the process of starting Windows RE and initiating recovery. You do this by having the user access the Advanced Boot Options menu as discussed in Repairing and Recovering a Computer in Chapter 17.

Performing a Windows 7 Installation

Before you install Windows 7 on a computer, you should determine whether the underlying hardware meets the requirements for physical memory, processing power, and graphics capabilities. Microsoft provides both minimum requirements and recommended requirements. Requirements for memory and graphics are measured in megabytes (MB) and gigabytes (GB); requirements for processors are measured in gigahertz (GHz).

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Windows 7 requires:

A 1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor At least 1 GB RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit) A DirectX 9 graphics processor with a WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

NOTE Microsoft recomends that a computer have available disk space of at least 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit). Various features in Windows 7, such as protection points, which include previous versions of les and folders that have been modied, can quickly increase the size requirements. For optimal performance of the hard disk, you need at least 15 percent free space at all times and adequate space for the paging le, which might be up to twice the size of the systems RAM. Also, if you are doing an in-place upgrade, the Windows.old folder will contain folders and les from the previous installation.

Any computer that meets or exceeds the hardware requirements can run Windows 7. You can perform an interactive installation of Windows 7 by completing these steps:
1. Start the Windows 7 Setup program by using one of the following

techniques:

For a new installation, turn on the computer and insert the Windows 7 distribution media into the computers DVD-ROM drive. When prompted, press a key to start the Setup program from the DVD. For an upgrade, start the computer and log on using an account with administrator privileges. Insert the Windows 7 distribution media into the computers DVD-ROM drive. The Windows 7 Setup program should start automatically. If Setup doesnt start automatically, use Windows Explorer to access the distribution media and then double-click Setup.exe.

2. Click Install Now to start the installation. Setup will copy temporary les

and then start. If you are starting the installation from an existing operating system and are connected to a network or the Internet, choose whether to get updates during the installation. Either click Go Online To Get The Latest Updates For Installation or click Do Not Get The Latest Updates For Installation.
TIP You dont have to get updates during the installation. If you decide not to get updates, you can update the computer later using the Windows Update feature.

3. Read the license terms. If you agree, click I Accept The License Terms, and

then click Next.

4. Specify the installation type as Upgrade or Custom (Advanced). Select

Upgrade if you want to upgrade the previously installed operating system to Windows 7. Otherwise, select Custom (Advanced) to install a clean copy of Windows 7.
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NOTE When you install a clean copy of Windows 7 on a computer running an earlier version of Windows, Setup moves folders and les for the previous installation to a folder named Windows.old, and the previous installation will no longer run.

5. When prompted for an installation location, choose the disk drive on which

you want to install the operating system, and then click Next.
TIP During installation, on the Where Do You Want To Install Windows page, you can access a command prompt by pressing Shift+F10. This puts you in the MinWinPC environment used by Setup to install the operating system, and you have access to many of the same command-line tools that are available in a standard installation of Windows 7.

6. If the disk youve selected contains a previous Windows installation, youll see

a prompt telling you that existing user and application settings will be moved to a folder named Windows.old and that you must copy these settings to the new installation to use them. Click OK. Setup will then start the installation. During this process, Setup copies the full disk image of Windows 7 to the disk youve selected and then expands it. Afterward, Setup installs features based on the computers conguration and any hardware that Setup detects. This process requires several automatic restarts. When Setup nishes the installation, the operating system will be loaded and the system will be set up for rst use.
7. When prompted, choose your country or region, your time and currency

format, and your keyboard layout. Click Next.

8. You must next create a local machine account that will be created as a com-

puter administrator account. Type a user name.

9. Type a computer name, and then click Next. 10. Type and then conrm a password. Enter a password hint. Click Next.
TIP Passwords for user accounts should be fairly complex. You make passwords difcult to guess and crack by using a combination of all available character types, including lowercase letters, uppercase letters, numbers, and symbols.

11. With retail versions of Windows 7, you typically have to provide a product

key. If prompted for a product key, enter the product key. By default the computer will automatically activate Windows the next time you connect to the Internet. Click Next.
12. Select a Windows Update option for the computer. Usually, youll want to use

the recommended settings to allow Windows 7 to automatically install all available updates and security tools as they become available. If you choose Ask Me Later, Windows Update will be disabled.
13. Review the date and time settings, and then make changes as necessary.

Click Next.
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14. If a network card is detected during setup, networking components are

installed automatically. Depending on your location type, click Home, Work, or Public Network. Windows 7 will then congure networking for this location. Afterward, Windows 7 will prepare your desktop. You may have trouble installing Windows 7 for a variety of reasons. Possible solutions to common problems follow in problem/solution format.

You cant boot from the Windows 7 installation media Although most computers can boot from DVD, sometimes this capability is disabled in rmware. Set the boot order in rmware so that the DVD drive appears ahead of hard disk drives and other bootable media. For more information, see Chapter 10, Managing Firmware, Boot Conguration, and Startup. You cant select a hard disk during setup Although the Windows 7 installation media contains drivers for most disk controllers, you may have a disk controller for which a default driver isnt available. Insert media containing the required drivers and then click Load Drivers on the Where Do You Want To Install Windows page. If the driver is on an internal hard drive, press Shift+F10 to access a command prompt and then use Xcopy to copy the driver les to a USB ash device or other removable media. You can then click Load Drivers to load the drivers from the media. You forgot to modify the hard disk conguration prior to starting the installation On the Where Do You Want To Install Windows page, click Drive Options (Advanced). You can then use the options provided to create, delete, and format partitions as necessary. If you need to shrink or extend a partition (even during an upgrade), press Shift+F10 to access a command prompt and then use Disk Part to work with the partition. You can extend and shrink partitions without having to delete them. You also can use Disk Part to change the disk type and partition style. For more information on Disk Part, see Chapters 10, 11, and 12 in Windows Command-Line Administrators Pocket Consultant, Second Edition (Microsoft Press, 2008).

Running Windows 7
When the operating system starts after installation, you can log on and access the desktop. By default, Windows 7 stores user prole data under %SystemDrive%\ Users\%UserName%. Within the user prole folder, each user who logs on to the system has a personal folder, and that personal folder contains additional folders. These folders are the default locations for storing specic types of data and les and include:

AppData Contacts Desktop

User-specic application data (in a hidden folder) Contacts and contact groups The users desktop Programs and data downloaded from the Internet
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Downloads

Favorites Links

The users Internet favorites The users document les

The users Internet links

My Documents My Pictures Saved Games Searches

My Music The users music les The users pictures The users saved game data My Videos The users video les The users saved searches

NOTE %SystemDrive% and %UserName% refer to the SystemDrive and UserName environment variables, respectively. The Windows operating system has many environment variables, which are used to refer to user-specic and system-specic values. Often, Ill refer to environment variables by using this syntax: %VariableName%. If youve upgraded to Windows 7 from an earlier version of Windows, the users personal folder will also contain symbolic links (which look like shortcuts) to the folders and settings used by that earlier version. A symbolic link is a pointer to a le or folder that often is created for backward compatibility with applications that look for a folder or le in a location that has been moved. You can create symbolic links by using the Mklink command-line utility. At a command prompt, enter mklink /? to learn the available options.

In addition to personal folders, Windows 7 uses personal libraries. A library is simply a collection of les and folders that are grouped together and presented through a common view. Standard libraries include:

Documents data. Pictures

Collects a users My Documents data and Public Documents

Music Collects a users My Music data and Public Music data. Collects a users My Pictures data and Public Pictures data. Videos Collects a users My Videos data and Public Videos data.

You can create new libraries to act as views to various collections of data by right-clicking the Libraries node in Windows Explorer, pointing to New, and then clicking Library.
CAUTION When you work with libraries, it is important to remember that they are only representations of collected data. Windows 7 creates merged views of les and folders that you add to libraries. The libraries themselves do not contain any actual data, and any action you take on a le or folder within a library is performed on the source le or folder.

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