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| The Boot Screen of Windows 1.01 back in 1985 |
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| Windows 1.01's MS-DOS Excecutive. |
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| Windows 8 - a much bigger difference than from XP to Windows 7! |
When you log into Windows 8, there's no longer a desktop. Instead, you get the Start screen that has tiles for Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, and various apps and widgets you can pin to it. The idea is that the Start screen is your central dashboard for switching among tasks.
The Start screen is expandable, so you'll likely need to scroll horizontally to see more of your tiles. Like Apple's Mac OSX Lion, Windows 8 by default shows no scroll bar until you start moving your mouse. (If you have a touchscreen PC or tablet, you just swipe to scroll; there is no scroll bar on gesture-savvy devices.) However it must be noted that this is indeed from what Microsoft call the Developer Preview, and is by no means what the final version will look like.
I had the 'Developer Preview' on my netbook, and we had a quick look at what is likely to be around the corner, in the not so distant future.
Back to the present, or rather tonight....a Windows Reinstallation. We discussed creating or putting together what I refer to as an Emergency Repair Kit. This is to comprise of all the things you are likely to need in the case of rebuilding your computer. My suggestions are as follows:
- Windows Installation CD/DVD
- Windows System Repair Disk
- Windows System Image (on DVD or USB HDD)
- Application CD/DVDs (Such as MS Office, Corel PaintShop Pro etc.)
- Driver CD/DVDs for any new Printers and Peripherals.
- Documents Backup on DVD or USB HDD (Please tell me you have one by now)
- Screwdriver (in case you need to get inside the computer for some reason)
- Documentation (Things like mainboard manual, etc)
The idea behind this kit, is that if you keep these things to hand, then whenever you need them you will know where they are. When times get frantic and things don't work, the last thing you'll want to do is be running around like a chicken without a head, looking for everything. So, do yourself a favour, take 30 mins or so one day, and gather up all your bits and pieces and get organised.
We had a netbook to perform the procedure of reinstalling Windows. This particular machine was brought in by one of the students and was an ideal candidate for tonight's session. The netbook in question just kept jamming and freezing, and there was no work on it that needed to be salvaged, so a fresh install was the quickest way to fix it.
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| Samsung NB150 netbook - nice colour! ;) |
I checked earlier in the day to see if I needed to download any drivers for it, a Samsung NB150, but there were not, which suggested to me that Windows 7 would cater for all the hardware. The first thing I needed to do was correct, or double check what is known as the computer's boot sequence. This is done in BIOS setup.
The BIOS (Basic Input-Output System) is an essential set of routines in a PC, which is stored on a chip on the motherboard. It acts as an intermediary between a computer's hardware and its operating system. Without the BIOS, the PC's operating system would have no way to communicate with, or take control of, the hardware. On many computer's you access the BIOS setup practically straight after the computer is turned on. Many machines offer the option to Press DEL or F2 on the screen to enter Setup. If you are unsure how to do this on your own computer, consult the mainboard manual.
In the BIOS there will be a sub-menu where you can set the 'boot sequence' of the computer. Basically, when the computer is powered on, this is sequence in which it looks at drive units to boot or startup from. Most will have the Harddisk set as the first boot device, in this case we needed to set the DVD drive to be first. This allows us to put the Windows Installation DVD into the computer, and the computer will read this, and boot up from this first, rather than loading from it's harddisk, into a non-functional installation of Windows.
I should mention at this point, that the computer we were rebuilding, was a netbook, and therefore didnt have it's own DVD drive, so for the purpose of this excercise I used a portable USB powered drive.
When the Windows Installation disk is inserted and the computer is restarted, you are prompted to press any key to boot from the CD/DVD drive, otherwise the system bypasses the drive, and continues to the next drive listed in the boot sequence.
One of the options Windows setup presents you with, is whether you want to upgrade your current copy of Windows, or do what it refers to as a Custom install. This is usually referred to by many as a 'clean' install.
The Windows 7 installation is a fairly simple procedure, with very few options for us to choose from. The first thing I wanted to do was remove the partitions from the drive. Partitions are portions of the harddisk divided up, and work as seperate disks. The advantage of removing these, is that it gives you one big disk, not seperate disks. Having partitions leads in my experience to a false sense of security when it comes to backing up data. You might have a drive partitioned in two, giving a C: and D: drive, and one might keep a backup of data on D: - which is a false economy really, because if the harddisk fails, you lose both C: and D:
Anyway, after partitioning the disk, the 'hands free' part of the installation takes place. This took about twenty minutes. When complete we simply had to enter a name for the user of the computer, and to choose a name for the computer, and then Windows finalised a few things before presenting us with the Desktop.
Job done - for now anyway, any additional programmes that are required now need to be installed. A final once over before finishing, to make sure all the hardware was installed, such as the wifi adapter and sound card, and that closed the session!
Next week, a look into home networking, what it involves and what equipment do we need - should be fun!
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