Windows 7 - Day 2 - Load the Operating System

We closed play yesterday with the 'old' computer completely backed up and ready for Windows 7 to be loaded. All the forums and Microsoft agree that the best way to proceed is to do a clean install. That means to wipe the old version of Windows from C: drive and install Windows 7 in its place. It is possible to upgrade XP and Vista to Windows 7 but the experience of the beta testers and those running RC1 seems to be that doing this leads to problems with hardware drivers and incompatible programs.

Before C: is wiped make sure you know which version of Windows (32 or 64 bit) you are running. You can find that out by right clicking on the (My) Computer Icon on the desktop and going to properties.

I chose to wipe and do a clean install so let's begin there.
There are two ways to wipe C: drive;

1. Use a third party partition manager like Partition Magic and do a full format of the drive which should get rid of all traces of your previous windows installation and any nasties lurking amongst the files.
2. You can use the drive format utility in the Windows install but be aware that this is a quick format that only wipes the file allocation table (FAT) not the files themselves.

I used the Partition Magic Rescue Disk Set as I wanted to make sure I was working with a clean HDD.

The next stage is to put the Windows DVD in the drive making sure you are using the right one as all the retail versions of Windows 7 come with both 32 and 64 bit versions. Restart the computer and if the BIOS are properly set you should see Windows files starting to load.
Now comes the setup for the install;

1. The first screen sets your location, language and keyboard. Select UK English and windows will assume you are in the UK and using a UK keyboard.
2. In the next window click on Install Now
3. Accept the licence for the software after reading it
4. Next select Custom install not upgrade
5. In the next window select drive 0. This is/was C: drive before you formatted it
   a. If you chose not to format the drive before beginning this process, now is the time to do it by clicking on Drive 0 and on format below the drive window. it only takes a few seconds and then you can click on next.
   b. One word of warning here. If you are upgrading from XP your C: drive may be quite small as XP has a very small footprint compared to Vista. Windows 7 needs 26 Gb of free space just for the operating system. You also need room to install programs like Office. I would suggest that the smallest drive you can safely install Windows 7 on is 80 Gb.
   c. If you are installing on to a laptop make sure you don't inadvertently delete or format the space on the HDD where your recovery files are located. You should have copied them to a recovery CD/DVD before beginning any work on your laptops HDDs.
6. The next window is where the files for the new operating system are copied to the HDD, unpacked and installed. Nothing much will happen while this is going on so go and make yourself a sandwich and a pot of coffee.
7. Your computer will restart several times while the installation is in progress and you will be asked for a name for your account, a name for the computer and a password. Write these down because if you forget them you will have to go back to square one and start again.

If the previous 7 steps have completed successfully you now have a brand new clean installation of Windows 7.

The next job must be to install an Antivirus program before you do anything else to your computer. Miss out this step at your peril, it takes only a very few minutes for an unprotected computer connected to the internet to be infected.

You can now begin to set your computer up for internet, email, add accounts for other users on family machines and generally get the computer ready to have the programs installed. You will find my guide for doing this at

I have got a new computer.

You can download this blog as a PDF here