Guide for Installing Windows XP

Installing Windows XP (Home or Professional Edition) can be very simple, even for those without much experience working with computers. This guide assumes that you are installing Windows XP directly from a disc onto a clean, unpartitioned, unformatted hard drive, and that all computer components are installed and working correctly.

System requirements for Windows XP (Home or Professional)

1. Ensure that your computer meets or exceeds the minimum system requirements to run Windows XP:

• 300 Mhz Intel or AMD CPU
• 128 Megabytes of system RAM (It can work with 64 Megabytes of RAM but its not recommended)
• 1.5 Gigabytes of available drive space
• Super VGA 800x600 Display Adapter
• CD or DVD-ROM
• Keyboard and mouse, or other pointing devices
• Network Interface Adapter required for Internet and Network Connectivity

2. Ensure you have a Windows XP Product Key. It is printed on a sticker on your software package. It is a string of 5 groups of characters (each 5 long), separated by dashes, resulting in 25 characters in all.

It looks like this: WHTMF-MFC8P-N3YCP-RXDMH-FM4H6.

When the software has almost finished installing, you will be asked for it.You need the product key to complete installing Windows.

3. Before inserting the CD, you'll have to enter bios (in most cases by presing DEL on system startup) and select your primary boot device CDrom. Insert the Windows XP Installation Disc and start your computer. When prompted to "Press any key to boot from CD," press a key on the keyboard.

4. The installation program will check your hardware, install default-set drivers, and load files necessary for installation. When arriving at the "Welcome to Setup" screen, Press ENTER to begin the installation process.

5. Read the License Agreement, and press F8 indicating you agree to its terms.

6. On the next screen, you are presented with a summary of the available partitions on your installed hard drives. At this point, you should see only one entry, "Unpartitioned Space." It will be highlighted in grey. Press C on your keyboard to begin creating partitions for the drive.

7. Enter the size in megabytes for the new partition. If you intend to install only one drive, enter the maximum amount shown. If you wish to create multiple partitions on a single drive, remember that Windows XP requires at least 1.5 Gigabytes of space, plus swap space, and areas for temporary files. A good rule of thumb is not to install Windows XP on a partition less than 5 Gigabytes, unless you wish to impact performance. When calculating, remember that there are 1,024 Megabytes per Gigabyte. Press ENTER once you have chosen your desired partition size.

8. The system will create your new partition, and you will now be at the partition summary screen once again. Select your new partition, usually labeled "C: Partition 1 [Raw]" and press ENTER.

9. Select either "Format the Partition using the NTFS File System" OR "Format the Partition using the FAT File System," and press ENTER. NTFS is the preferred method, supporting a larger amount of disk space per partition than FAT, and including security features at the file system level. NTFS also includes system level compression. If your partition is larger than 32 Gigabytes, you must choose NTFS. However, with a partition less than 32 Gigabytes, you can choose FAT, and convert to NTFS later should you desire. Be aware that NTFS cannot be converted back to FAT.

It is highly recommended to avoid Quick Format, as this skips an important process that checks the hard drive for errors or bad sectors. This scan is what consumes the majority of the time taken when performing a full format. If there are errors on a disk at the physical level, it's best to catch them now rather than later.

10. The system will now format the partition. The length of time this process requires depends on the speed and size of the drive, and the type of file system you selected earlier. In most cases, the larger the partition, the longer the process will take.

11. Windows will now start copying files from the installation disc and prompt you to reboot the computer when the process is completed. Press ENTER when prompted to reboot, otherwise it will do so automatically after 15 seconds.

12. This is the most time consuming part. When the computer reboots, do not press enter to boot from the disc this time, rather allow the computer to boot from the hard drive. If you are greeted with the Windows XP Boot screen, all is well so far.

13. Now the setup program will display various marketing information to you as it installs and configures itself to your system. The estimated time remaining is displayed in the lower left corner.

Note: it is normal for the screen to flicker, turn on and off, or resize during this process.

14. Sooner or later, a dialog window will appear, asking you to choose your Regional settings. Select appropriate settings native to your area. Click the "Next" button when that is completed.

15. Enter your Product Key, (otherwise known as a CD or Install Key,) at this window. You will not be able to complete this process without a valid Key. Click "Next" to continue.

16. If your computer is going to be on a LAN (Local Area Network) at home, or even just for kicks, give it a name.

17. Select your time zone, and ensure that the date/time are correct. Click "Next" to continue.

18. Leave "Typical Settings" selected for Network Setup, unless you have a specialized access device or protocol required. Refer to the documentation for that device for installation procedures.

19. Setup will continue to install other devices and peripherals connected to your machine, give you marketing and capability information, then reboot as before.

20. Congratulations! You've installed Windows XP. There are a few more additional set-up routines required, but you have completed the installation. Remove the CD from the drive.

21. Upon Reboot, click Yes when you are informed Windows will be changing your visual settings to improve quality.

22. In the next box, if you can read the text, press the "OK" button.

23. A similar screen to Part 2 of the install process will appear. If your computer is connected to the internet, select your connection type. Press Next to continue.

24. If connected to the Internet, Select "Activate Now."

25. After the Activation Process, a window will appear allowing you to select the users for the computer. Enter your name, and the names of others who will be using the machine. Press Next to continue.

26. You will now be looking at the default Windows XP Desktop. Congratulations!

Tips

• The setup generally takes 15 to 40 minutes depending on the speed of your system. It's best to stay near, because throughout the installation, it will ask questions such as the Time and Network settings
• Don't forget to set your boot priority in your BIOS. On older systems, the BIOS is set to read Floppy, HDD, and THEN CD-ROM. You will need to set your boot priority to load the CD-ROM before Floppy and HDD.

Cautions:

• You can install Windows more then once on a single partition, but this may lead to system instability in the future. Download software such as Partition Magic 8, to safely divide the hard drive into partitions for safe install.
• Do not attempt to install Windows on a system that does not meet the minimum requirements.
• Be sure to Activate Windows within 30 days of installation, otherwise the system will not allow you to log on until Activation is complete.

The Windows XP Start Button - Tutorial Part 2

The start button (see fig 1.1) is a very important part of Windows XP, clicking on the start button opens up what is called the start menu, the start menu is used to access your programs, settings, printers and more, we will take an indepth look at the start menu and its functions in part 2 of our Windows XP tutorial.



In fig 1.1 above is an example of a typical start menu.

Here is an overview of the different options:
Log off - Log off the current user.
Turn Off Computer - shutdown, restart and standby.
All Programs - Access to installed programs.
Run - Used to manually start executable files (programs).
Search - Search your PC for pictures, music, documents, files and folders.
Help and Support - Opens the built-in Windows help including various help topics, windows updates and also allows you to request remote assistance from a friend/colleague via the internet or network.
Printers and Faxes - Access to your printers and faxes folder, allows you to add and configure printers/faxes.
Control Panel - The control panel is used to configure various Windows XP settings, we will be looking at the Win XP control panel in detail later in the tutorial.
My Computer - Gives you access to your computer's disk drives and files, we will be looking more closely at the My Computer function later in the tutorial.
My Music - Links to a folder created by Windows XP which is used (by default) to store any music files on your hard drive.
My Pictures - Links to a folder (again created by Windows XP) used (by default) to store any pictures/images on your hard drive.
My Recent Documents - This folder contains any recently viewed documents.
My Documents - Gives access to a folder created by Windows XP which is used (by default) to store any documents on your hard drive.
Tour Windows XP - Starts the built-in tour of Windows XP's features.
Windows Movie Maker - Opens Windows XP's movie editing software.
Outlook Express - Opens the Outlook Express mail program.
Files and Settings Transfer Wizard - Allows you to import or export your files and settings from or to a different installation of Windows XP.

Note: some of the options have a small black arrow to their right, this means that another submenu will appear when you hover your mouse pointer over it.

Turn off Computer
If you click on the Turn Off Computer option on the start menu you will see a dialogue box like that shown in fig 1.2, below is a summary of the options available:

Standby - This will put your computer into standby mode, basically it will power down components like the monitor and hard drive to preserve energy.

Turn Off - Shuts down the PC, always use this option to turn off your PC.
Restart - this will restart the computer.

The All Programs Menu
When you hover the mouse over All Programs you will see a menu appear similar to that shown in fig 1.3, from this menu you can access the programs currently installed on your PC.

Your menu will be different from our example as you will have different programs installed on your PC.

To open a program simply left click on it, some options have a small black arrow to the right hand side, this indicates that it contains another sub-menu. For example, the accessories folder has a sub-menu, if you wanted to open a program from within the sub-menu, then you would hover the mouse pointer over accessories (for example) and then click on the program you want from the sub-menu.

You can rename any program on the menu by right clicking on it and selecting rename from the menu that appears.

After installing new software it will (normally) appear on the programs menu, to remove any program just from the All Programs menu simply right click on it and select delete, if you want to uninstall a program then use the control panel (covered later in the Win XP tutorial) to uninstall it, simply deleting it from the programs menu will not uninstall the software.

It's possible to create a desktop shortcut for any of the programs, see related pages at top of this page

The Windows XP Desktop & Icons - Tutorial Part 1

The first part of the tutorial we will have a look at the Desktop, introduce you to icons and the taskbar.

Below in fig 1.1 you can see an example of the Windows XP desktop, when you first switch on your machine and Windows XP loads it usually looks similar to that shown in our example, although Windows XP by default has a picture for the desktop background.

Desktop refers to the main background area (in our example the white area), you can customise your desktop by adding background pictures, changing the background colour, changing the size of the icons, and more.

Introduction to Icons
Icons are small graphical images that can represent your computer's programs, files, folders and printers amongst other things (see fig 1.1).

To activate the program/file/folder that an icon represents you simply double click (two clicks in quick succession) on it with the left mouse button, this will activate the icon and either start a program or open a file/folder.

The icons on your desktop can be renamed by right clicking on them and selecting rename, similarly they can be deleted by right clicking and selecting delete.

It's possible to create your own icons for programs, files, folders, etc.
See our guide to creating desktop shortcuts in our tips and tricks section.

In our example we have two icons, the outlook icon is for example purposes only, by default you will usually just have the recycle bin icon which is explained below:

Recycle Bin
When you delete a file, Windows XP will place the file into the recycle bin instead of deleting it altogether, this allows you to restore the file in case you deleted it by mistake. For example say you deleted a file by accident you could double click on the recycle bin icon to see its contents, and then restore the file back to where you deleted it from by right clicking on it and then selecting restore from the menu that appears.

Note: some files may be too big to be stored in the recycle bin, but Windows XP should warn you if you delete a file that cannot be restored.

Keeping the Desktop tidy
The more you use Windows XP the more your desktop may start to fill up with icons, either because you install more software or you create your own icons.

Windows XP can automatically align and sort your desktop icons to keep the desktop tidy, to achieve this click the right mouse button anywhere on the desktop and a menu will appear (similar to that shown in fig 1.2), hover the mouse pointer over Arrange Icons By and a submenu will appear, from here you can sort your desktop icons by name, size, type and last modified date. Selecting the Auto Arrange option will automatically align your desktop icons every time you add one to the desktop.

The Desktop Cleanup Wizard will remove any desktop shortcuts that have never been used to a new folder on your desktop called Unused Desktop Shortcuts.