Windows Installation Methodology

[btvillarin]

Hey everyone,
I'd like to know what installation methods you've taken to ensure that your setup is ASAP (as stable as possible). The reason why I'm starting this is because I'd like more information on the reasons of why you might do a certain thing (if ya know what I mean).

Here's is the basis of my thread, when Toey posts how the order of installation affects how your computer will run.
<A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/software/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=18044#18044" target="_new">Link to thread</A> - scroll down a little

Let's pool everyone's knowledge! This should be an awesome thread, with no flaming whatsoever. (At least try not to.)

<A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/btvillarin" target="_new">My Website</A>-<b>reorganized</b> & updated everyday<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by btvillarin on 03/27/02 07:24 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[jc14all]

I concur, most excellent thread! If anyone has a better proven method lets pool this knowledge by sharing your results. Good idea btvillarin.

<b><font color=red>Cast your vote with your $,</b></font color=red> <b><font color=blue>shed your pride with your opinion.</b></font color=blue>

 

[btvillarin]

*Bump*
C'mon now...this would really help not just me, but everyone out. Pretty please???

<A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/btvillarin" target="_new">My Website</A>-<b>reorganized</b> & updated everyday

 

[wwildbh]

I will try to help.....
I went the XP Home upgrade path (I'm cheap, or should I say cheaper).

1. FDISK the hard drive and deleted the dos partion (98se).
2. Install XP home and formatted the Hard drive under NTFS.
3. Installed all needed updates from M$.

I did try upgrading the first time I installed XP. Too many problems with incompatible software. Clean is the way to go, IMHO. The one thing that I did not do is flash the bios to the most recent version.

I know that I really didn't provide alot of info but I tried.

 

[btvillarin]

Hey, it's all good. Thanks for caring and posting. I'm kinda posting on the more along the lines of what you do after Windows is done installing, such as what order do you install the drivers, motherboard drivers, video card drivers, etc. And, almost everyone will agree that clean installing is recommended.

Thanks, <b>wwildbh</b>!

<A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/btvillarin" target="_new">My Website</A>-<b>reorganized</b> & updated everyday

 

[btvillarin]

Alright, I'm gonna try to give this a boost to see if I can get any action. Here's what I've done when installing Windows (XP). My background is that I have two HDs. The primary HD is strictly for WinXP, while the slave HD is partitioned into two, with the first partition for the paging file (around 4GB - in case my 120GXP dies), and the rest of it for my personal data, mp3s, and downloads.

1) After installing Windows XP, install Via 4-in-1 drivers.
2) Install all critical updates and windows updates, making sure they're needed.
3) Install video card drivers.
4) Set paging file to second HD.
5) Disable Hibernation feature, and other settings that I don't need...except the services.
6) Image this perfect setup to my second HD.

This isn't as comprehensive as my cheezy guide <A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/btvillarin/Articles/xpguide1.htm" target="_new">here</A>, but it's basically what I do. Plus, I've changed some things, like the order (since Toey recommended it), but that's it in a nutshell.

Now will someone post?

<A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/btvillarin" target="_new">My Website</A>-<b>reorganized</b> & updated everyday

 

[wwildbh]

Actually, That is all I needed to do with this system.

P III 800
Asus P3B-f 440 BX
Extremely Stable.

I will post on what I had to do with my Athlon. That was a different story. Not now though, sleepy.

AMD 1.2
Asus A7V

 

[OldBear]

I agree with all except #1. My system is stable with the Via drivers on the XP cd (4 in 1 v4.32?)
so I have not upgraded to v4.37. (If it ain't broke, don't fix it.)
I have not tried moving the paging file to second HD. What kind of success have you had?


<font color=blue><b>You get what you pay for...all advice here is free.</b></font color=blue>

 

[btvillarin]

Well, it might not be broke. But, the performance might be improved with it.

As for moving the paging file to the second HD, I don't have to worry about unnecessary space being taken up in my image of the OS. Plus, I don't notice much grinding at all (even though I have 512MB of memory).

I feel kinda weird cuz on my 40GB HD, it only contains WinXP. So, it's got a lot of space to kill. But, it's okay.

<A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/btvillarin" target="_new">My Website</A>-<b>reorganized</b> & updated everyday

 

[OldBear]

On my first WinXP install I did use the 4in1 4.37 and everything went south
so that's the reason I left it alone this time. I did try a roll-back. System
locked and tried a repair by booting with CD. Never could get it going. I had
to get up and going so......


<font color=blue><b>You get what you pay for...all advice here is free.</b></font color=blue>

 

[dhlucke]

I took my retail copy of WinXP pro and copied the 386 folder as well as some of the other files in the root directory to my hard drive, used the corpfiles to replace all the necessary files, used <A HREF="http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/" target="_new">http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/</A> to create a bootable cdrw, added my drivers to the cd, restarted, fdisked the harddrive, converted to ntfs and formatted, and installed without a hitch.

With the ECS K7S5A the windows drivers are sufficient, but I did update my detonator drivers and I ran siside to make sure DMA was enabled.

Done.

I'm still trying to figure out the pagefile optimization. I want to move it to the right part of my platter, but don't really know how. VoptXP aparently does it, but after a few hours I just cancelled the operation since I'm not sure if it's actually doing anything.

PS, I haven't read toejam's thread but will do so now...

<font color=red>If you were to have sex with your clone would that be considered incest or masturbation?</font color=red><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by dhlucke on 03/11/02 11:27 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[dhlucke]

Hmmm....let me add something.

I update the video drivers first. According to Toejam that's bad. I then updated my iomega drivers, then I updated the OS through the windows update. No problems really, but would I get better performance by doing this in another order?

<font color=red>If you were to have sex with your clone would that be considered incest or masturbation?</font color=red>

 

[Toejam31]

Not "bad". And not necessarily greater performance. That really wasn't the point. But you'll lessen the possibility of another device conflicting with the video card during the installation if you'll wait until the other devices are already installed, such as the sound card, mouse driver, NIC card, etc.

Most people tend to install the video card driver first, simply to make it easier to see the entire display while working in the system. But after having done many installations, on hundreds of different configurations, it has become very apparent to me that installing a third-party video card driver last in the sequence allows a much greater chance for system stability, and will avoid most conflicts, which are not ordinarily encountered when running strictly with the default Windows drivers for a device.

You won't get much performance out of that video card if it locks up and drops you back to the desktop.

This started to become particularly important when the GeForce cards were first released, IMO.

As for the other items in the sequence, such as a service pack, hotfixes, and chipset drivers ... this creates a more stable environment for adding other components.

For example, installing a modern game in Win2K without first installing the compatibility updates is probably not the best sequence of events. And it might not run well if the chipset drivers aren't installed, and the CD-ROM is stuck in PIO mode. And if the video card is conflicting with the sound card, even if the system is ACPI, sudden reboots are at the very least, disturbing. And wouldn't you want the latest DirectX files already on the drive before installing the video card drivers, just in case the system accidently sets the AGP texturing in PCI mode? It's nice to have the diagnostic program already in place before upgrading the device.

Look at it as assembling the entire system, piece by piece, as with software building blocks. Every part of a stable system depends on another, whether it's correctly setting the CMOS after adding a hard drive, but before installing the OS ... or checking for updated firmware for an optical device before installing burning software and a software DVD player.

It's surprising, but many people who like to build computers are fairly meticulous about installing the hardware, but once this is finished, really have made no deployment plans on how the operating system, drivers, and programs should be installed. It becomes a guessing game at that point. Patches? Sound card drivers? Modem drivers? The old scanner software? Or maybe just stop, relax, and play a little solitaire?

You'd be amazed how many people don't even have a disk prepared with the drivers for the system. (Well, maybe not you, dh.) They just start downloading, and updating as they go, in kind of a random fashion. And if a conflict or a incompatibility issues arises, they can't even make a good judgement call about they were doing at the time. Who knows what did what to whom, and when?

How many times have you seen. "It just suddenly stopped working! All I did was ..."

Yep, I've heard that tune before, one or twice. And nearly all of that is software-related.

You catch my drift?

Toejam31

<font color=red>My Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=6847" target="_new"><font color=green>Toejam31's Tantalizing Tantric Toy</font color=green></A>
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<font color=purple>"Procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."</font color=purple>