How to Set-up Operating System for windows XP?

• Opened the CMOS, in the main menu, check the bios to make sure all the components were showing up, the boot sequence was in the proper order, and that the time and date were set correctly.
• I the first place go into the standard CMOS settings and check to make sure all the Drives were there. Then, set the date and time from the screen.
• If all of the drives are not showing up, shut down the computer, disconnect the power supply to the computer and begin checking the drive(s) connections that are not showing up. Nine out of ten times it ends up being a connector that is not seated in all the way. After this is done, restart the computer and check to see if the drive is there. If it still is not being recognized, the computer will need further diagnosis.
• After you make sure all of the drives installed are there, then move on to the Advanced BIOS Features Screen and check the boot sequence.
• Once in the advanced BIOS screen, press enter to proceed to check the boot sequence.
• The drive that used to install the operating system had to be first in the boot sequence. Always check and follow the user guide that came with the motherboard for further setup instructions.
• Followed the user manual that came with the motherboard and set up the BIOS properly. saved the BIOS settings, now you are ready to install the Operating System. load the Operating System CD into the DVD drive that you set as number one in the boot sequence and restart the computer.

Here is the next screen; this is the welcome to the setup screen. It gives you in this case Three different options;

1) To set up Windows XP now press enter,

2) To repair windows installation using the recovery CD press “r”

3) To quit all together press F3.

If you do number 2 to repair Windows, it’s actually really, really technical and sometimes it doesn’t work. let’s get out of this you can press F3 but if you want to continue formatting the hard drive you would press enter. Once you press enter it’s going to come up with a license agreement, you can read it, decide if you want to or not want to do this, accept the agreements, you can do a page down to read everything but if you decide okay this is what I really want to do, you press the F8 key, on the keyboard and it will take you to the next prompt. What it’s going to do right now is search for previous versions of Windows. Now obviously if you’re formatting your hard drive you already had a previous version of Windows. This is going to say, two options here;

1) To repair Windows you can press “R”

2) To continue installing a fresh copy of Windows you can press escape.

If you’d like to, let’s say that you feel that or a tech told you maybe just re-installing Windows would be fine you can do the “R”, again, I’m not a big fan of that, if your computer has a lot of problems it needs to be formatted. You can just go ahead and go through the next step, which is pressing escape. Once you press escape you’re going to have some more options. Right now what it’s going to do is ask you which hard drive if you have many, would you like to put Windows XP on. In this case the “c” drive, which is what everybody basically calls their hard drive is the one that we want to do it to. You see that there, okay. Then you have these other options here. To set up Windows XP on the selected item press Enter which is this one here. To create a partition in an un-partitioned space press “c”, partitioning is basically taking your hard drive and cutting it into sections. In this case we are not going to do that. The last one is to delete the selected partition press “D”, again if you had a partition on your hard drive and you wanted to delete it, you could do that. So in this case what we are going to do is press Enter, because we want to install Windows on our “C” drive. The next screen comes up and cautions you, your two options are; to continue using Setup with this partition press “C”, to select a different partition press “Escape” again we’re not going to be dealing with partitions in this segment, we’re just going to be formatting the hard drive so to continue to setup using this utility press “C”, so we press “C”

Select a file system for the installation partition. After you create the partition on which you will install Windows XP Professional, you can use Setup to select the file system with which to format the partition. Windows XP Professional supports the NTFS file system in addition to the file allocation table (FAT) and FAT32 file systems. Windows Server 2003, Windows XP Professional, Windows 2000, and Windows NT are the only Microsoft operating systems that you can use to gain access to data on a local hard disk that is formatted with NTFS. If you plan to gain access to files that are on a local Windows XP Professional partition with the Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows 98 operating systems, you should format the partition with a FAT or FAT32 file system. We will use NTFS.

Setup will then begin copying necessary files from the installation point (CD, local I386 or network share).

The computer will restart in graphical mode, and the installation will continue.

The GUI-based portion of the Setup program

The setup process reboots and loads a GUI mode phase. It will then begin to load device drivers based upon what it finds on your computer. You don't need to do anything at this stage.

1. Click Customize to change regional settings, if necessary.

· Current System Locale - Affects how programs display dates, times, currency, and numbers. Choose the locale that matches your location, for example, French (Canada).

· Current Keyboard Layout - Accommodates the special characters and symbols used in different languages. Your keyboard layout determines which characters appear when you press keys on the keyboard.

If you don't need to make any changes just press Next.

If you do need to make changes press Customize and add your System Locale etc.

2. Type your name and organization.

3. Type the product key.

4. Type the computer name and a password for the local Administrator account. The local Administrator account resides in the SAM of the computer, not in Active Directory. If you will be installing in a domain, you need either a pre-assigned computer name for which a domain account has been created, or the right to create a computer account within the domain.

5. Select the date, time, and time zone settings.

6. Setup will now install the networking components.

7. In the Workgroup or Domain window enter the name of your workgroup or domain.

· A workgroup is a small group of computers on a network that enables users to work together and does not support centralized administration.

· A domain is a logical grouping of computers on a network that has a central security database for storing security information. Centralized security and administration are important for computers in a domain because they enable an administrator to easily manage computers that are geographically distant from each other. A domain is administered as a unit with common rules and procedures. Each domain has a unique name, and each computer within a domain has a unique name.

If you're a stand-alone computer, or if you don't know what to enter, or if you don't have the sufficient rights to join a domain - leave the default entry selected and press Next.

A username/password window will appear. Enter the name and password of the domain's administrator (or your own if you're the administrator on the target domain).

Note: Providing a wrong username or password will cause this phase to fail.

8. Next the setup process will finish copying files and configuring the setup. You do not need to do anything.

9. After the copying and configuring phase is finished, if XP finds that you have a badly configured screen resolution it will advise you to change it and ask you if you see the new settings right.

BTW, the minimum supported screen resolution in XP is 800X600.

10. Setup finishes and boots Windows XP.

11. A Welcome screen is the first thing you see. The computer checks your Internet connectivity (required for the mandatory Activation and voluntary Registration processes).

You will be asked to register your copy of XP. You can decline if you want.

12. XP will ask you for the default username that will log onto this computer. You can enter as many as 5 users, but you can create more after the installation is finished.

13. That's it! Now, you can run you're computer!