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Installing Windows 7. Part 1

By: Stephen Drommonsy

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This is the first portion of my article on how to safely install Windows 7 on to your computer or laptop and aviod all of the pitfalls that this can involve. Believe me when I say that it is never as easy as the providers make it out to be. So! here we go with part One.

1. Get ready and duplicate your data

OK. Before you attempt to install Windows 7 on your computer, make sure you back up your photos, videos and documents. If you do not already have one, the best and simplest way to do that is to buy a new external hard drive. Large capacity hard drives are now relatively cheap and should be an essential piece of your home network. With that in mind, I suggest you buy an external hard drive that you can attach to your wireless home network.

A clean install is best when installing Windows 7. This will make the new operating system operate much faster and more efficiently.

Now, you’ll need to locate the important private data that you want to store. The most significant location to look is in your user profile directory. That contains your Documents, Desktop, Pictures, and Application Data folders. For safety, make a copy of C:/Users/ (your user name) path and back it up on your external hard drive. Have a look through your Program Files and Download files for anything you might have missed.

2. Start the Windows 7 installation

Windows 7 is straightforward to install. Put the Windows 7 DVD in the drive and reboot the system. you will be given an instruction to re-boot from the DVD and you should follow this. If you do not get this choice, go into the BIOS or Setup option on your computer - more often than not holding down the F2 key before Windows boots up. Now move the DVD drive ahead of the hard drive in the boot order).

When the Windows 7 installer has launched, choose your language, accept the Windows license agreement and select to carry out a ‘Custom install’.

I have never needed to install a partition on my computers and unless you are looking to install dual operating systems on your machine, I suggest you ignore this.

Windows will ask you if you want to format the drive before installment. Remember, formatting a drive takes away all of it’s data. So be definite that you’ve backed up the whole lot because you cannot get it back, but it is a good idea to format it as it totally extracts the old operating system.

Now you can abandon the computer for a while. Windows 7 can take quite a while to install. You'll most likely have time to watch a film. In fact if you’re upgrading instead of performing a clean install, it has taken me up to 18 hours on a number of computers!

3. Finishing the installation.

Once Windows 7 has installed itself, it will ask you to provide a User name and a Computer name. To make networking easy, choose something memorable and catchy. So give your computer a name - ‘Colin’, ‘HAL’, ‘Marvin’ - whatever. Your user name - well - use your name or your company’s name and a number.

You may want to create a password for this account. it’s a good idea if you have kids in the house or other people working in your office.

you will have to to enter the Windows 7 activation product key. This is a 25 digit hexadecimal code. You will find it either on or inside the box that came with your Windows 7 disk. Although Windows 7 will work for 30 days without it - it will stop working after that date.

You are now all set to look at your new operating system, Windows 7.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

I hope people find this article interesting as well as useful. If you follow what I have written on the subject of installing Windows 7 then you shouldn't have any problems. Good luck and happy reading.

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