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Figure 01 |
The preferred method for initiating a clean install of Windows
XP is by booting from the XP CD. If the CD drive is not set as
the primary boot device it will be necessary to access and
modify the BIOS settings. Once the CD drive is set to be polled
before the hard drive, insert the XP CD into the drive and power
on the system. If the screen shown in Figure 01 appears, all is
well and the clean install of Windows XP Professional is
underway. |
Figure 02 |
Almost
immediately after Windows setup begins the screen shown to the
left will appear. Unless you have the very latest in hardware
you probably won't need to press the F6 key to install and SCSI
or RAID driver. However, when XP is first installed it tries to
determine what type of BIOS is available on the computer. Newer
systems have what is known as Advanced Configuration and Power
Interface (ACPI) capability. Unfortunately, XP doesn't always
recognize a computer BIOS is ACPI capable and doesn't install
the support for ACPI. Pressing F5 at this point allows you to
select the proper HAL. A full description of the process is
here. |
Figure 03 |
Once
the initialization process completes, the screen in Figure 03
loads to guide the XP installation process. More than anything,
this screen is a fork in the installation road. This guide deals
with a clean install and to accomplish that goal select the
first option by pressing Enter. If you wanted to use the
Recovery Console with an already completed XP installation,
pressing R would be the proper choice. F3 ends the current
installation process. After pressing Enter, setup will search
the drives for an existing XP installation. |
Figure 04 |
Pretty
much any way you go at an installation anymore you're going to
run into the Windows XP Licensing Agreement, better known as the
End-User License Agreement or EULA, shown in Figure 04. Press F8
if you agree to the terms or press Esc and start researching
alternative operating systems if you don't agree. There's no
middle of the road. |
Figure 05 |
Since
you agreed to the terms of the EULA in the previous step, and
because this is a clean installation from an upgrade version of
XP to an unpartitioned and unformatted hard disk, the screen in
Figure 05 appears asking you to verify you qualify to use the
upgrade product. Of all the XP installs I've done I could count
on two hands the number of times they have been done from full
version CD's rather than upgrade CD's, so it's pretty likely
you'll see this screen. The qualifying products are listed on
the screen. Replace the XP CD with the qualifying product CD and
press Enter. |
Figure 06 |
Once
Microsoft is convinced you've agreed to the EULA and qualify to
install the upgrade version, the screen in Figure 06 appears
where you choose a drive and partition on which to install XP.
For those familiar with prior Windows operating systems, this
section of setup is equivalent to FDISK when a clean
install
is being performed. In this example, since there is only
the one hard disk it will be used to create the install
partition by pressing C. |
Figure 07 |
Once
the partition creation has been initiated, the screen in Figure
07 opens and prompts for the size of the partition that will be
created. As long as you adhere to the minimum and maximum listed
on the screen you have the freedom to set partition sizes as you
wish. Keep in mind that there are
minimum space requirements to install XP. Set the size of
the desired partition and press Enter. |
Figure 08 |
Once
the partition has been created you are returned to the screen in
Figure 08. If there is still unallocated space on the drive and
you want to create another partition, highlight the unallocated
space entry and press C again to repeat the partition creation
process. If you want to change the partition that was just
created, highlight it using the up and down arrow keys and press
D. A confirmation message will be displayed. Once you're
satisfied with the partition scheme, highlight the desired
install partition and press Enter. |
Figure 09 |
The
final step after creating and selecting the install partition is
specifying the file system to use for formatting the partition.
The available choices will be shown on the screen that appears
as in Figure 09. In most cases you'll want to use NTFS. It's far
more secure than FAT32 and supports permissions, encryption, and
compression. The only reason for considering FAT32 would be data
sharing with W9x/Me installations and since this scenario deals
with a clean install it's not even a consideration. |
Figure 10 |
Remember a few steps ago when XP wanted you to insert a CD to
prove you qualified to use the upgrade version of XP? What it
didn't do was tell you to remove the qualifying version and
reinsert the XP installation CD. That time has arrived. Why it
doesn't do this immediately after the verification I have no
idea, nor will I waste more time on this screen. |
Figure 11 |
The XP
CD is back in the drive and the partition is being formatted.
This part of the process is totally non-interactive and a tad
less interesting than watching paint dry - unless of course the
paint is the same hideous yellow color as the progress bar. |
Figure 12 |
You
thought the part where the partition was formatted was boring?
More of the same in this section of setup where the files needed
for installation are being copied to the hard drive. You'd think
at the least they could have changed the progress bar color. |
Figure 13 |
Almost
there; the configuration is being initialized. This screen has a
blissfully short appearance. |
Figure 14 |
Finally. A red progress bar that indicates the system will
reboot in 15 seconds so the Graphical User Interface portion of
setup can begin. If you're still awake, tap the Enter key to
speed up that 15 seconds until restart. This is the end of the
text portion of setup. |
Figure 15 |
This
is it - Prepare yourself for what is possibly the longest
commercial for a piece of software that has ever been presented,
also called the Graphical User Interface phase of XP setup.
Click the Onward to Phase II link below. |
|
Onward to Phase II - Graphical User Interface Phase |
