Windows 7 installation guide

[Mrkvonic]

Hi all,

I've written a long, detailed Windows 7 installation guide. It should be quite useful for Windows XP users considering trying or switching to Windows 7 or just new users wondering what Windows 7 installation is like.

This guide will be followed by an extensive Windows 7 security tutorial and a desktop customization guide.

And we will also have a dual-boot tutorial, where we will install Windows 7 and Ubuntu side by side, which will force us to play with Windows partitions, resize them and whatnot, and we'll even learn how to recover from boot error following dual-boot games ... So stay tuned. Enjoy.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/windows-7-install.html


Comments and suggestions are welcome!

Cheers,
Mrk

[1boss1]

Good write-up, i always get stuck on your site reading around for almost an hour every time i go there. :D

I've got a query, i done this yesterday i had a machine that dual booted 2 XP installs. I used the Win7 CD to do a format of the second XP partition, and installed 7 to there.

All good both OS's work perfect "but" i now have a double OS selector menu when booting. I get the new one first

Earlier Version of Windows
Windows 7

If i chose 7 i go straight to the 7 desktop, but if i chose XP i go to my old boot selector and can chose my main XP or my defunct second XP install which is now 7.

What's the best way to go about merging them in to one, or removing one? I just don't want to wind up with both OS's as a matching pair of house bricks. :argh:

Thanks.

[lodore]

try easybcd (http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1)

[1boss1]

-{ Quote: "try easybcd (http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1)" }-

Thanks lodore, i just installed it (While in Win7) and i can only see the bootloader that comes first when i start up the machine.

-{ Quote: "There are a total of 2 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 15 seconds.
Default OS: Earlier Version of Windows

Entry #1

Name: Earlier Version of Windows
BCD ID: {ntldr}
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \ntldr

Entry #2

Name: Windows 7
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows" }-

That's all perfect, i'm happy with the timeout and want XP to be the default OS if none is selected after countdown. So do i boot in to XP and install Easybcd again, do i just delete the XP's bootloader?

Also what happens if i decide Win7 isn't for me and nuke the install, wouldn't my only bootloader be dead and prevent me from getting in to XP? Or do i just change the timeout on the XP bootloader to "0" so i use 7's bootloader for OS selection then it just ignores the second?

Last time me and a bootloader locked horns, things got ugly so i don't want to kill this one. Thanks again.

[lodore]

install easybcd in windows xp and if you decide to get rid of windows 7 then boot to windows xp and then open up easybcd and go to "manage bootloader" click on the option uninstall the vista bootloader (use to restore xp) then click on write mbr. go to view settings the first tab on the left of easybcd and make sure information is correct to boot xp.
then reboot and check it is using the windows xp bootloader and correctly boots xp. if it does you can safely delete the windows 7 partition.

i assume you have a windows xp cd?
you shouldnt need to do the below if you do the above.
if so at the worst you can do the following:
put in the Windows CD. press R to get the command prompt, select your HDD then type "fixmbr"

[Mrkvonic]

If you want to delete the old xp entry, without touching the partitions, just delete the entry from the bootloader menu.
Mrk

[n8chavez]

I have a question that relates to Windows 7 installation and disk imaging. The linked tutorial above shows that a primary partition is created, as expected, but then so is a system partition (partition 1). Which partition(S) need to be backed up for a complete restore; partition 1, 2, or both?

Also, with the Windows 7 installation being so large is it impossible to xreate an image that would fit on a DL DVD?

[Mrkvonic]

Both.

As to image size, max. compression with lzma or bz2 should give you a decent small size.

Regards,
Mrk

[n8chavez]

That is a shame. It makes backing up and restoring a complete system much more difficult. Programs like Drive Snapshot cannot have two partition images in one image file.

[Mrkvonic]

Try CloneZilla, good compression, good filesystem support, multiple partitions and whatnot.
Mrk

[Tom Ehlert]

-{ Quote: "Both.

As to image size, max. compression with lzma or bz2 should give you a decent small size.

Regards,
Mrk" }-

for most purposes, lzma or bz2 is a bit slow when dealing with file sizes of ~10GB

[1boss1]

Thanks lodore and Mrkvonic,

Well i installed Easybcd in XP, but it's also detecting the same Win7 bootloader as it detected while running it in 7. Plus none of the buttons down the side work, not clickable only the top menu system is which are no use. Uninstalled, reinstalled again and same thing.

If i manually view my XP boot.ini i can see the XP entries just fine, but Easybcd can't. Actually the only thing that seems to work in Easybcd is it's trying to hijack my RSS feeds calling msfeedssync.exe even though i disabled it and restarted the program several times plus shut it down.

So i've gotten rid of it off both OS's, i only boot once a day so 2 boot loaders is no biggie and i don't see Win7 staying installed for the long term.

[Osaban]

-{ Quote: "try easybcd (http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1)" }-

Thanks, it worked very well for me.

[Mrkvonic]

-{ Quote: "for most purposes, lzma or bz2 is a bit slow when dealing with file sizes of ~10GB" }-

Speed versus compression, a fair tradeoff ... :)
I would say more than a bit slow ... but you can get tiny images.
Mrk