Installing Windows 7

If you get the installation of an operating system right, it makes supporting that operating
system throughout its lifetime a great deal simpler. If you make an incorrect configuration
decision when installing an operating system, and you do not find out about it until you have
deployed the operating system to more than 100 computers in your organization, it will take
significantly more time to rectify the problem. In this lesson, you learn about the minimum
hardware requirements for Windows 7, the different editions, how to perform a fresh
installation,
and how to configure Windows 7 to dual-boot with other operating systems.





                             
                  Windows 7 Enterprise and Ultimate Editions


The Windows 7 Enterprise and Ultimate editions are identical except for the fact that
Windows
7 Enterprise is available only to Microsoft’s volume licensing customers, and
Windows
7 Ultimate is available from retailers and on new computers installed by
manufacturers.
The Enterprise and Ultimate editions support all the features available in other
Windows 7 editions but also support all the enterprise features such as EFS, Remote Desktop
Host, AppLocker, DirectAccess, BitLocker, BranchCache, and Boot from VHD. Windows 7
Enterprise
and Ultimate editions support up to two physical processors.


                           Windows 7 Hardware Requirements




Operating systems work properly only when you install them on computers that meet the
minimum hardware requirements. You should remember that these requirements are just
for the operating system itself, but most people want to do more than just run an operating
system: they also want to run applications. Applications require memory and storage space
beyond that of the operating system minimum requirements. As someone who may be
responsible for making recommendations about the specifications of computer hardware that
your organization will purchase, you need to take into account the hardware requirements of
the operating system and the applications that will run on it, not just the operating system
itself. Windows 7 Starter and Windows 7 Home Basic have the following minimum hardware
requirements:
n 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
n 512 MB of system memory
n A 20-GB (x64) or 16-GB (x86) hard disk drive, traditional or Solid State Disk (SSD), with
at least 15 GB of available space
n A graphics adapter that supports DirectX 9 graphics and 32 MB of graphics memory
Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions have the
following
minimum hardware requirements:
n 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
n 1 GB of system memory
n A 40-GB hard disk drive (traditional or SSD) with at least 15 GB of available space
n A graphics adapter that supports DirectX 9 graphics, has a Windows Display Driver
Model (WDDM) driver, Pixel Shader 2.0 hardware, and 32 bits per pixel and a minimum
of 128 MB graphics memory