Must-see precautions before installing the Win7 system at five points

Now that you have downloaded the ISO image and burned it to a DVD. Next you have two options to run the installer. The performance of the Windows Installer depends on which method you choose. If your system already has Windows XP, Vista, or an earlier version installed, you can launch the installer from the Windows operating system. Alternatively, you can boot the system from the installation media. Either way, you will see a dialog box.

First, choose the installation method

Now you have downloaded the ISO image and burned it to DVD. Next you have two options to run the installer. The performance of the Windows Installer depends on which method you choose. If your system already has Windows XP, Vista, or an earlier version installed, you can launch the installer from the Windows operating system. Alternatively, you can boot the system from the installation media. Either way, you will see a dialog box.

What is the difference? If you run the installer on Windows.

1. You cannot run a 64-bit installer on an x86 version of Windows.

2, install Windows 7 and the existing Windows version of the same volume.

3, must use the existing partition, can not be changed, the installer does not recognize the unallocated space.

If booting from a Windows 7 DVD:

1. You cannot upgrade an existing Windows version, you can only customize the installation.

2, you can delete an existing partition, create a new partition, extend an existing disk partition, or specify an unallocated space as the installation location.

3, install Windows 7 and the existing Windows version of the same volume.

Also, if you launch the installer in Windows, you can choose to run a compatibility check on your existing system.

Second, how to install a new

If you plan to do a clean installation, it is recommended that you back up first, then launch the installer from the Windows 7 DVD, eliminating any existing partitions. Because this will save you time and reduce some trouble. Now assume that you have already made a backup. Because all the data will disappear, so be sure to save it before you start.

There are four steps to the new installation:

1. Start the program from the Windows DVD, follow the prompts to select a custom (advanced) installation, and then click Next to enter the screen;

2. Click Drive Options (Advanced) to display all available disk management tools;

3. Select a partition from the list and click Delete;

4. For others Any additional volumes are repeated until nothing is left except for the unallocated space.

Now you can complete the installation with all the unallocated space on the drive.

Third, find the old driver without fear

In my tests, so far, windows 7 is very detailed on the driver. But it's not perfect, some devices are blank, or replaced by generic drivers.

If you have already installed an earlier version of Windows Vista or Windows 7, you do not need to use a special program to back up the driver from the old system. Windows Vista and Windows 7 save a local copy of all drivers in a folder called FileRepository, which is in a subfolder of the DriverStore folder. The full path is C:WindowsSystem32DriverStoreFileRepository.

In a clean Windows 7 X86 installation, the FileRepository folder contains more than 900 MB of files. If you add some new devices or updates, this number can easily exceed 1GB.

After you have completed the new installation of Windows 7, you can use Device Manager to install or update any driver, or just click on the old driver you saved to install.

Four, no fear to overwrite old folders

When you instruct Windows Installer to do a custom installation, it will use the old Windows, Program Files, and User Folders (Documents and Settings) Move to a file called Windows. Old folder. The new installation creates a new set of top-level folders on the current system drive: Windows, Program Files, and Users. The benefit of this is that when a single disk on a system has only one partition and a large amount of free disk space, it is completely new and does not lose any data. A new, non-destructive installation gives you a new start, and old data files are safely hidden in Windows. In the old folder.

To perform a clean and non-destructive installation, you can launch the Windows 7 installer on Windows or from the Windows 7 DVD, click on the installation steps, select the Custom (Advanced) option, and then, in the list of available disk partitions, Choose a partition that contains your current Windows installation. For most people, it's drive C. After you click OK, you'll see a warning dialog. After you've finished setting up, when you first start Windows 7, you'll see all your data and program files. In Windows. In the old folder. If you have any old data files to retrieve, you can find them in the Users folder (Windows Vista) or Documents and Settings.

V. Hard disk capacity requirements return to the original

Under the current standard, you do not need a lot of disk space to install Windows 7. Microsoft announced the RC minimum hardware recommended 16G free disk space. But that's not a hard requirement. After installing Windows 7 Ultimate on a 10G drive (9. 9G format) virtual machine, there is still 3.95G of free disk space.

Later I noticed that the full installation of Windows 7 Ultimate x86 requires 6 to 9G of space. Obviously, this amount will increase when you install additional programs or create data files. But how big should the system partition be? Remind that 15G is the smallest scale, but it will become tight sooner or later, so if you have enough spare disk space, it is recommended to reserve at least 30G.