Installation Guide
By: Justin R Mitchell
 
 
This guide is intended to instruct a full, clean and secure installation of the windows 7 operating system.
 
NOTE: Please unplug your LAN/Internet connection to your system before the installation of windows 7
 
 
 
INTRODUCTION
 
Now let’s get started. Power on your computer and enter your BIOS menu. Find the boot sequence and change it to boot from the CD/DVD ROM. Make sure you have the windows 7 installation DVD in the Disc drive and then save your setting and exit BIOS. Once BIOS loads you will be prompt to “press any key to boot from CD” Now that you have begun to install windows 7, simply follow the directions until you get to a menu that states upgrade or custom installation. We always want to do a clean and full installation so please select custom installation. Now we move on to the partitions. Delete any and all partition on your Disc drive and then select new and set the size of the partition you want windows 7 to be installed on. You may notice that there is 100mb set aside on another partition. This is for a system restore, as all the restore files will be stored there. If for some reason your system reads 100mb and not 100mb free, just delete the 100mb partition and then it should read the full 100mb as intended.  Now format the Primary partition and then proceed with the installation. What you have just done is ensured a 100% clean installation on your disc drive for the windows 7 operating system. Please follow any and all directions at this time and select you time zone, date, and any recommended settings. The following steps are to be done once you can boot into your windows 7 operating systems desktop and can make changes.
 
 
                                              
THE REAL ADMINISTRATOR ACCOUNT
 
The account created during the windows 7 installation is a administrator account, however it does not have full access rights to the operating system. To achieve the full rights of the windows 7 operating system please do the following. In the Run command type “control userpasswords2” and press enter. You will now be looking at the User accounts. Select the advanced tab and then click on advanced. You are now looking at the local users and groups menu. Double click on users and you will see the administrator account, the guest account, and the account you created during the windows 7 installation. Right click on the account you created during the installation and select delete. 3 windows will pop up and just say ok to all of them. You will now see the account you created is gone. Now we move onto the administrator account. Right click on the administrator account and select properties.  Rename the account, note: you can not name the account the same as the account you created during the installation and deleted. Put a check mark in the box that says “ user can not change password” and most of all remove the check mark in the box that says “ Account is disabled “ Now please restart the computer by selecting it in the start menu. Once you have reached the desktop again. Go to your start menu and select computer. Double click on you Disc drive and then users. Delete the public folder and the folder with the name of the account make during the installation. You now have 100% full administration right to this operating system.
 
PERFORMANCE & SECURITY TWEAKS
 
The first performance tweaks we will be doing are going to take place in the control panel of your windows 7 operating system. Go to you start menu and select Control Panel. You may notice this control panel is a bit different from what you may be use to. I recommend you play around and get familiar with it before moving on. Once your done getting to know your new control panel we start by clicking on system and security. In this window you will notice a flag with the words action center next to it. To the right of this there is a shield that says change User account control settings, click this. (User account controls are the annoying window that pops up after you do just about anything to ensure you made the proper choice and refers to security) In the window you’re looking at now, you have the option to slide a lever up or down a bar to change the settings. We want this option turned off and don’t need messages popping up all the time, as most of use know exactly why we clicked on what we clicked on. Now within the system and security menu, under system you will see another shield that says “ allow remote access “ Click on this and please remove the check mark from the box that says “ allow remote assistance connections to this computer “ then click apply. Remote access is a big security threat and unless need should be disable 100%. Now in the same menu selection  system and security click on power options and click the small arrow pointing down to achieve the high performance option then select it. Your done here go back to the system and security menu in the control panel and select windows update. To the left of this window you will see many options for the updates. Click on change settings and select “check for updates but let me choose when to install them” or you can do what I do and select, never check for updates and I manually install them myself. I like this method better because I am in full control. This option is strictly preference. This will now wrap up the tweaks for the control panel, moving onto the system files. In the run command please type “msconfig” then press enter. Select the boot tab, then advanced options. Now that you are in the boot advanced options menu you need to put a check mark in the box that says “ number of processors “ then select the highest number of processors in the drop down menu below. This is in regards to you CPU (processor) If you have a dual core, you will see 1-2 processors. If you have a quad core you will see 1-4. By selecting the highest number, you are telling windows 7 to boot using all processor cores and in tern will boot faster. Once this is done click apply. Now in the same menu select the services tab and you should see a huge list of all the services that windows 7 is running every time windows starts. About 90% of these processes are necessary for windows to function properly, however some are not and could be potential security threats. Scroll down this menu and remove the check mark in these 4 boxes. Remote registry, unless you elected to use the remote services, we don’t want anyone to have access to or registry, especially remote connection. Secondary logon, this is in regards to the remote connection, other user, and hackers. You only want one way to log in to your computer and that is by you. Next is Windows error reporting service, every time that there is an error on your operating system, windows will report this to the company and then try to find ways to fix the problem for you. This is great however every time they do this it puts your registry at risk from modification. After a while your registry will be filled with stuff you do not need and harsh marks over any errors, just bypassing them and not getting ride of them. We will talk about this a bit later. Parental controls, unless this option suits you then get ride of it. My PC is rated NR.  Now select the start up tab and here you will find all programs that are running when you start your operating system. This is strictly preference and should only have running what you want to run when your system starts. This will also increase system boot time and performance. Now click on apply and you have now successfully completed a complete performance and security tweak on you windows 7 operating system.
 
 
 
DRIVERS & SOFTWARE
 
Please do not connect you LAN/Internet connection yet and install all the drivers that you can first. Most of your drivers may have already been installed during the windows 7 installation, however some may not have been and require a manual install, weather a CD/DVD or internet download. To check the status of your system and drivers, go to your device manager and any line item that is opened up as a submenu needs a driver. Once all the drivers have been installed refresh the screen, now all the submenus should be gone. If for whatever reason you need to go online to download drivers, please finish all the steps in this section then go online to achieve your drivers. Thank you. At this point you can now install any and all software you may have or want installed on your system. Once you have all your software installed, please check each program that you have install to ensure it is working as it is suppose to. You may now shutdown your system and connect to you LAN/Internet connection and restart the system. Once window’s has started, finish configuring your programs if need and the drivers you may or may not be missing at this point. You may now select windows updates from your start menu and fully update your windows 7 operating system. You may find you need to restart a few times before you receive all the updates. Once you have completed all of the available updates please move on to the optimization and maintenance section.
 
 
                                                 
OPTIMIZATION & MAINTAINANCE
 
There are many different ways to clean up and maintain your windows 7 operating system I will be showing you the best possible way to achieve this. To clean your disc drive the best option is built into the operating system it’s self. Go to your start menu and select computer. Then click once on your disc drive then right click and select properties.  Click on disc clean up and place a check mark in all the boxes and run the program. This program does a great job of cleaning junk files and the recycle bin. Next is the Internet files and cookies that tend to slow most LAN/Internet connections and render poor performance on most people’s computer systems. To do this select control panel from your stat menu, then click network and internet. Select internet options and under browsing history, delete. This is preference at this point however I recommend the cookies to be deleted for sure. Again everything else is preference. Once you have done that, in the same window select, under the browsing history, settings and select view files. In this window you may or may not see a lot of files that were left behind after the first step. Please highlight all these files, right click and select delete. Your LAN/Internet connections have now been maintained.
The single biggest improvement you can do to you system once you have completed installing all programs and software is disk defragmenter. In the Windows XP utilizes a great disc defragmenter, while Windows Vista barley worked at best. You may lay your worries to rest with windows 7. The windows 7 disc defragmenter is very good and very efficient. You can find this system tool in your start menu, under accessories and then system tools. Depending on your disc drive size and system components this may take an hour or 2. Once you’re complete with all of the above tasks and tweaks restart the system for a 100% clean install of your window 7 operating system. NOTE: as mentioned before, regarding the registry, windows 7’s registry and kernel files are written differently then that of prior operating systems. With that said never, and I repeat never use and kind of registry clean program. The reason again is that if you do use one your registry clean will see the windows 7 registry as over 70% bad files and will delete them all rendering the operating system useless. The registry cleaners are not designed for windows 7 operating system and should never be used. There will be companies making registry cleaners for windows 7, but I must warn you that there is really no such program out there that cleans up the registry, or defrags it for that matter. Any time a registry cleaner is run all it does is put hash marks or renders the files disabled and does not actually get ride of the problem file/files. To avoid these types of problem to your system or registry, try to keep your system running at its best performance as per this Installation guide and don’t install programs that are not need to later be uninstalled. Uninstalled programs only remove the programs files and applications and not the changes made to the registry, so after a long period of time they can gather up and cause errors down the road. For a more in depth look at the registry and registry cleaner issues, please Google it and do some research before you make that leap. Thank you
 
 
 
ANTIVIRUS & MALWARE
 
This section is 100% preference; however it should be installed regardless of which program you choose. Windows 7 comes standard with windows defender, which is a very good program that runs in the background to detect malware and other harmful files that may cause damage to your system. There are updates for this program in you windows updates periodically. As far as antivirus programs go, there are so many and people swear by all different types. The best pieces of advice I can give as far as this goes is find one that works well for you. Antivirus programs are a must have now a days and the ones with on access protection are the best. On access protection means they are running in the background all the time to catch any virus from websites, email or even programs. I can’t stress enough to keep these antivirus programs updated all the time or find one that downloads updates everyday. I can not tell you which program to choose, but I will leave you with this high recommendation. Avast home free edition, from avast.com
It is 100% free, has on access protection, downloads updates and program updates everyday and is very sensitive. The reason I say sensitive, and it is in a good way is that I have tried just about every antivirus program out there and this one caught viruses in the same files that were scanned through other antivirus programs. Popular antivirus programs such as Norton (which is a huge memory hog of a program and will impact performance) Comcast’s antivirus (which is the same as Norton) Microsoft essentials (which is a new one, and could not detect a virus on files that avast did) I could go on and on of about these virus programs and how some are better than others. Another quick point on avast is that it does not render any performance loss while it runs everyday and does not cause issues with other programs while running. I highly recommend this program, due to its stability, performance, reliability and most of all it’s FREE.
 
 
I thank you for taking the time to read this windows 7 installation guide and hope that you found it helpful is some way to better your systems performance and stability.
 
 
 
 

Section_25

Nice Guide.......

The only problem I encountered when installing windows 7 was that it didn't like my system having numerous SATA HDD's connected. When I attempted to install on one of the 3 HDD's that were listed, it got an error about not being able to find a valid partition to install on. Had me totally as a loss on what to do as I had never seen anything like it. Especially when the drives where right there in the list. Only way I was able to install was to disconnect ALL drives except one, then it installed fine. Just thought I would mention that little snag I ran into........ and BTW: I love Windows 7  !!!!!

Cheers !

Yup I also recommend disconnecting multiple drives unless you are using them in some Raid.

Nice guide.  Wish I had that instead of the little flyer that comes with the disk that goes something like:
1. insert disc and boot from dvd
2. follow on screen instructions
3. enjoy!

The install is pretty decent compared to many past versions, but if you have a question or a problem you will have to wade through a lot of forum posts all over the net to find your answers.  So guides like this one are needed.  Here are a few things I discovered on my journey:

If you have issues with the gui disk format and partition, you can also shift+f10 (I think at the first screen) to get a command prompt and then use Diskpart to format and partition as you please.  If you don't want windows 7 to eat 100mb for system restore, you can prevent it.  If you format and partition with diskpart or other utility and use the entire drive, windows 7 won't change it.  Instead system restore files just go in a folder.  Not debating the merits of either preference, just pointing out that you have the option.

I would reccomend at least considering a bios flash to most recent if you aren't already pretty current, just to have that out of the way.  I also download a lot of the drivers (video, sound, chipset, even keyboard and mouse) onto a usb drive (either before I start or using a second PC) so that these can be installed before establishing network and internet connections.

Also, at the end of the Windows 7 install it does a countdown to reboot.  The DVD should be removed from the drive at that point and on reboot go into bios and set it to boot from the drive win7 is now installed on.  It may be obvious, but the install sure doesn't tell you during the count down to reboot.  If you don't, many systems will freeze on the restart going into win7.

On the anti-virus question, I think the jury is still out as far as what really works well with windows 7.  Some major AV / Spyware programs have had sort of serious issues reported with Windows 7.  I am running Microsoft Security Essentials 64 bit for now.  It may not be perfect, but it was free, installed fast and doesn't seem to get in my way.  I'll come back and review options again at some point, but it's not a bad thing to install while you figure out what you want long term. 

THE REAL ADMINISTRATOR ACCOUNT


This dosn't work with Win 7 Premium..

Is there another way to stop the pop ups with out disableing access control?

Oz

I have disabled UAC for now to stop the pop ups, but would like a fix..

I tryed is on a Win 7 Pro sys and you can do it, so its a win premium thing. In the window where the users should be is where windows says it cant be done with this ver of windows..

oz

Are talking about stopping popups in the taskbar or the preview pane popup? If so that is here:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/52265-taskbar-thumbnail-previews-enable-disable.html?filter

rjohnson11

Are talking about stopping popups in the taskbar or the preview pane popup? If so that is here:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/52265-taskbar-thumbnail-previews-enable-disable.html?filter

No..


UAC Popups.

Oz

This Guide is very helpful!
Nice job.

And on this way, I say "Thank you, Justin!"

disabling the uac opton fully is what i am refering to. there is probaly a way to do what you want, however i do not see the reason why? uac has no effect for even being there for most user however there are ones that like the feature.

UAC is irelavent when your running the admin real admin account as stated in this post. I have no security issues and dont need windows to control me, i want to control it. this is why i wrote the guide for more advanced users.

I can confirm that the "control userpasswords2" function does not work with Win 7 Home Premium. It didn't with Vista, either. It allows you to go to where it should be, but then informs you that "this snippet is not available with this version of Windows."
 
I'm not sure I understand the need for the "uber admin" account anyway. I'm a fairly savvy user and have never needed access beyond what the "regular" admin account gives me.

you are the real controller if you enable or are able to enable the real admin account. seem to not work with win7 home or premium,which has still to be tested by me,however if true this is just one more reason to go pro or ultimate. then disable the uac in the control panel. you can take it one step further and access your regedit and find luafv to set start value from 2=enable to 4=disable. will post exactly how to get there when im at home. the why is to be answered by another question,why not? dont you want full control of your os and system?

hope this helped

you did delete the account created when you installed windows...? if you didn't yes the admin account will still load the one created during windows install. when you delete it you force it to enter the admin,becuase there is no other account.

jrmitchell1983

you did delete the account created when you installed windows...? if you didn't yes the admin account will still load the one created during windows install. when you delete it you force it to enter the admin,becuase there is no other account.

Yep. I followed the instructions to the letter just like the one for Vista. I ended up just making another account and changing the real admin back to normal. Even with that there are still things W7 want's you to "own" to delete which is stupid when it is a file I put there.

I really hate MS for that. Sure it protect stupid people from deleting things they should not but a save file folder for a game is not an essential part of windows.