Installing Windows

The installation process of Windows operating system has been simplifying with every major Windows release. Already at the time when Windows XP was popular, installation was quite simple. User only needed to put the disc into the CD-ROM, sometimes change the boot order in BIOS, and then the installation began. After that he needed to select the desired hard drive to install the system to. Also during the process user was asked about some more information. That created a problem, because user had to stay close to computer during all the 2-hour long installation.
After the basic installation is completed and the Windows is loaded, the most annoying step began. Installing drivers is easy if there is a disc with everything needed, but sometimes there was not such a disc. User had to look for drivers elsewhere. And after the drivers, there were a lot of programs to install.
After the Windows XP we moved to Windows Vista and Windows 7. Those systems are similar and they made some steps towards simplification of the installation process. Essentially, they stopped asking for information during the installation and they are capable of downloading drivers from the internet themselves. At least, they attempt to do so, even if it mostly doesn’t do anything.
And now we have Windows 8. The simplest Windows we have ever had before. As expected, the installation is also simple.
We have re-installed the Windows 8.1 system in E012 room. That didn’t take much time nor was it problematic in any way. Moreover, I have managed to explain the process to the person who has never tried installing Windows before and she managed to do it later flawlessly.
Clean installation of Windows 8 consists of four steps:
1. Selecting / creating a physical or virtual hard drive to install to (and formatting it before that)
2. Waiting until the installation from the disc finishes
3. Removing the disc and booting the system from the hard drive
4. Installing drivers and all the needed applications

1. Speeding up the operating system usage
My experience tells that the most efficient way to get rid of any problems the OS has, is to re-install it. But such a radical way is not needed when the problem is minor. For example, if the system has a long boot time.
Usually it is caused by the fact a lot of applications try to start with the system. To check that, we can do the following steps (on Windows 7):
1. Press Win + R combination / Open Start menu and find the Run… button
2. Type msconfig and press OK
3. Go to Startup tab
4. Remove all the applications we don’t need at startup.
After that we can reboot the PC and check if the result is satisfactory. If not, moving forward.
Those steps are created with HDD in mind and probably won’t do anything with SSD.
1. Open Computer
2. Click Right Mouse Button on a system disc
3. Click Properties
4. Go to Service tab
On this tab we can find two options we need. We can check the disc for errors. It is a good idea to run the disc check periodically to evade information loss. Second option is defragmentation. It will take a long time, but in most cases will improve the disc operating speed. And if we defragment the system disc, we improve the system operating speed.
We can also try and check for viruses. There are a lot of applications that protect the PC in real time, or perform full PC scans. Having an antivirus installed is always a good practice, but it’s important to keep in mind that any antivirus is not an ultimate protection.
If all of those don’t affect the performance, maybe it is still the right time to go for the Windows re-installation. For active users the system can be re-installed every year or so.
And we can actually go even more radical. If even the clean system doesn’t boot well enough, it is definitely a good time to think about hardware upgrade. At the moment RAM is quite cheap and can be easily upgraded. It is harder with CPU and video cards, but usually more RAM helps just by itself.