PC Construction and Maintenance Week 5 Operating Systems Installation and Configuration of Windows

What is an Operating System? The operating system is the software that governs the operation of the computer It controls the computer’s hardware It provides an interface to the end user The operating system presents a consistent API (Application programming Interface) to software developers

Operating Systems – In general Different Operating Systems are tailored to specific requirements Some operating systems are lightweight and designed for handheld devices (e.g. Windows CE, EPOC) Some OS are very elaborate and suitable for high end server applications (e.g. SUN Solaris) In the middle there are the desktop PC operating systems

What makes up an OS? On disk, the operating system comprises a set of files, usually a large number of them These files constitute the core of the operating system, device drivers, configuration files and ancillary programs Operating Systems have an architecture. The architecture of the system affects the performance and functionality of the system

Parts of an operating system Most widely used operating systems can be broken down into the following components The Kernel, or core of the operating system takes control of the processor Device Drivers are run by the kernel to control hardware and input output The user-level component of the operating system controls the interface with the user, and user applications

Common Desktop Operating Systems The Desktop Operating System Market is currently dominated by Microsoft Corporation The worlds commonly used desktop applications are also developed by Microsoft For most common office tasks it makes sense to use one of the Windows Family of operating systems

Other Systems Linux is another operating system that can be used on desktop computers Technically, it is far superior than Microsoft systems in terms of efficiency and robustness. Typically, it is used for academic purposes, software development, and server applications

Choice of operating system Ask the question, what do you want to use the computer for? Choose the system most suitable of meeting the requirements All of the currently available systems have advantages and disadvantages There is no single system that can do everything

Windows Systems If using a windows operating system, then consider one of the seven systems Windows 95 release C, Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows ME, Windows NT 4 Workstation,Windows NT 4 server, Windows 2000 workstation, Windows 2000 server All of the above systems have a very similar interface, however, they have significant differences

Windows 95 release C Use this operating system on low end machines with less than 32 Mb of RAM Supports all Office Applications Runs Old and New games very well Supports Real-DOS mode for awkward DOS apps Supports FAT16 and FAT32 filesystems Not recommended for new machines because of hardware compatibility issues

Windows 98 SE Second edition is relatively robust This is Microsoft’s last operating system to support Real-DOS mode Supports all office applications Runs both old and new games really well Recommended for use on new machines where Real-DOS mode support is still needed (very rare now though) Supports FAT16 and FAT32 filesystems

Windows ME This is the latest operating system in the 95/98 line Still very compatible with old software, however does not support Real-DOS mode This OS has the best Multimedia support of any Microsoft OS to date This is the recommended operating system for general-purpose home use on new computers Best system for high-demand games. Again,this OS can run all office apps Supports FAT16 and FAT32

Windows NT 4 Two versions – workstation and server Uses secure filesystem – NTFS Most suited to serious apps Runs all office type applications Multimedia support is very limited Use only if Windows 2000 is not an option Can support some older hardware that won’t work properly under windows 2000 Not suited particularly for games playing

Windows 2000 Recommended for new computers where robustness and security are issues Not as compatible with older software as Windows ME A large existing base of older hardware won’t work with 2000, but will work with ME Windows 2000 is by far Microsoft’s most stable operating system to date Windows 2000 is really “Windows NT 5” Recommended for serious users of office applications Multimedia support is good

The Windows Family Tree

Operating system Evolution The number of bits of an operating system refers to the number of bits of data the processors works with As the bus-width of processors steps up, operating systems have to be re-written Future Microsoft operating systems will most likely be 64-bit operating systems In between, we will probably see hybrid 32/64 bit systems

A case study – Windows 95 The installation procedure for windows 95 is very similar to that of windows 98 and windows ME Before starting, we assume motherboard and processor are configured and operating under normal conditions Assume we have at least a 1Gb drive in the system, and configured in the BIOS correctly Step 1 requires a bootable floppy disk, preferably with CD-ROM support

Step 1 – obtaining the boot floppy A DOS boot floppy can be made from an existing machine running win95/98/ME Boot floppies made from earlier DOS versions are not desirable as they won’t support FAT32 The DOS SYS command can be used to make a formatted floppy bootable The DOS command FORMAT /S will format a disk, and then make it bootable

DOS CD device driver It is necessary that we must be able to access the CD-ROM drive from our DOS boot disk To do this, a CD-ROM device driver is needed This driver is normally supplied on a disk with the CD-drive. There is a generic one on the windows 98 CD – works with 90% of the world’s IDE CD Drives The driver is set up by editing two files, CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT

Useful Utilities It is also desirable to put the format command and the fdisk command onto the boot disk These can be obtained from the PC from which the boot disk was made They are found under C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND on 95 and 98 systems

Step 2 – Partitioning and Formatting Windows needs to boot from a primary DOS partition. FDISK can create the partition The partition need not fill the entire disk, but it must be active Because it must be active, it must reside on the first hard disk in the system It is recommended to run FDISK in “Large Disk Mode” so that a FAT 32 partition will be created After partitioning, reboot, and format the partition

Step 3 – Installing windows 95 Change drive to the CD-ROM drive, this is typically the D: drive. Type D: to do this Run the setup program by typing SETUP The setup program optionally accepts command-line arguments. You can view these by typing SETUP /? Some of these commands can be used to speed up the installation process

The install process Assuming setup was run without any command line parameters, a scan of the hard disk will be performed At this point, if there are any serious problems found with the partition, then setup will not let you proceed Otherwise, Click continue to enter the main graphical install. From here on, the mouse can be used. If the mouse is not active, then it is not set up properly.

The install process Click through the licensing agreement. The next screen offers a choice of installation location It is very good practice to stick with the default path of C:\WINDOWS After making the choice, setup checks for an existing windows installation, and then checks for adequate disk space.

Type of install You can choose from one of four types of install. Typical is quick and easy, however you must manually set the keyboard and language to UK rather than US after installation Portable is recommended for laptops Only use Compact if hard disk space is very limited Custom is the most flexible mode of installation

Customising the computer After selecting the mode of install, you will be prompted for a name and company It is normal practice to enter the full name of the computer user In public networked environments usually a non- personal name is used instead The company field is optional After Windows has been installed, Applications will pick up on these settings and use them

Analysing the Computer By Default, windows will probe for all sorts of devices on the system The process of hardware detection can be sped up by de-selecting hardware from the search list that you know is not present in the computer In the case of setup probing for all known devices, you still need to specify whether the machine has a sound or network card The speed of the initial hardware detection varies a great deal depending on the specification of the target computer

Select install components There are many extras supplied with Windows Operating Systems. They can be selected here. Some components may not be needed by the end user. In this case, they can be de- select to save disk space.

Network Configuration In custom mode, the network may be configured during installation Often though, this is sorted out after windows has been installed For this to work properly, the network card must be recognised by windows, or the device driver disk for the network card must be available

Computer Settings This menu is most commonly used for altering the language settings of the computer Usually the keyboard settings and the regional settings are both altered for a computer in the UK Other less used settings can also be altered here

Making a startup disk Optionally, a startup disk can be created in case of future problems If the hard drive became corrupt, then you could boot from a startup disk and attempt to repair the system If have got this far though, then you probably won’t need one, as you will have used your own custom startup disk

The install process After completing the settings, setup will copy the operating system files from the CD to the computers hard disk This may take a long time on old computers After this process completes, remove any boot disk, and restart the machine The newly-installed operating system will boot for the first time

The first boot up The first boot up will take much longer than subsequent boot ups because the system still has more configuration to perform At this point, plug and play devices will be configured After that is also another opportunity to set the system time For the UK, the time zone should be set to GMT Daylight saving should be checked

Setting up a printer Finally, there is an opportunity to install a printer This task can always be performed at a later time Reboot again, and the second time, the computer will boot faster than the first time

Finalising the settings After rebooting, Internet explorer will be installed after a single click This can be bypassed – but that is not recommended The first phase of the windows install is now complete Now the process of manually installing and configuring additional hardware begins