How to install Windows 7

Although I've done this install of Windows 7 dozens of times, I've never documented it here. I found a great article from the folks at buildeasypc.com . Enjoy.


This step-by-step guide demonstrates how to install Windows 7 Ultimate. The guide is similar for other versions of Windows 7 such as Home Premium.

The best way to install Windows 7 is to do a clean install. It is not difficult to perform a clean installation. Before you start the installation process I recommend that you check Windows 7 System Requirements list to ensure that your hardware is supported by Windows 7. If you don't have Windows 7 drivers for all your hardware, it is a good idea to download all the drivers from the hardware manufacturers website and save all the necessary drivers on a CD-R or a USB drive before you start the installation.

Windows 7 DVD is bootable. In order to boot from the DVD you need to set the boot sequence. Look for the boot sequence under your BIOS setup and make sure that the first boot device is set to CD-ROM/DVD-ROM.

Step 1 - Place Windows 7 DVD in your dvd-rom drive and start your PC. Windows 7 will start to boot up and you will get the following progress bar.

Step 2 - The next screen allows you to setup your language, time and currency format, keyboard or input method. Choose your required settings and click next to continue.

Step 3 - The next screen allows you to install or repair Windows 7. Since we are doing a clean install we will click on "install now".

Step 4 - Read the license terms and tick I accept license terms. Then click next to continue.

Step 5 - You will now be presented with two options. Upgrade or Custom (Advanced). Since we are doing a clean install we will select Custom (Advanced).

Step 6 - Choose where you would like to install Windows 7. If you have one hard drive you will get a similar option to the image below. You can click next to continue. If you have more that one drive or partition then you need to select the appropriate drive and click next. If you need to format or partition a drive then click Drive options (advance) before clicking next.

Step 7 - Windows 7 starts the installation process and starts copying all the necessary files to your hard drive as shown on the image below.

Step 8 - It will go through various stages of the setup and will reboot your system few times.

Step 9 - When your PC reboots it attempts to boot from DVD as its the first boot device. Do not press any key during the boot prompt so Windows 7 will continue with the installation by booting from the hard drive.

Step 10 - After the reboot your computer will be prepared for first use.

Step 11 - At this stage you need to choose a user name and computer name. Click next to continue. The user account you create here is the Administrator account which is the main account for your Windows 7 that has all the privileges.

Step 12 - Choose your password and password hint just incase you forget your password and need to jog your memory.

Step 13 - You can now type the product key that came with Windows 7 and click next. If you do not enter the product key you can still proceed to the next stage. However Windows 7 will run in trial mode for 30 days. You must therefore activate Windows within 30 days otherwise you can not access your computer after 30 days.

Step 14 - Help protect your computer and improve Windows automatically. Choose Use recommended settings.

Step 15 - Review your time and date settings. Select your time zone, correct the date and time and click next to continue.

Step 16 - Select your computer's current location. If you are a home user then choose Home network otherwise select the appropriate option.

Step 17 - Windows will now finalize the settings for your computer and restart.

Step 18 - After the final restart Windows 7 will start to boot up.

Step 19 - Finally you have the logon screen. Just type your password and press enter or click on the arrow to logon to Windows 7 for the first time.

Step 20 - After you have logged on to Windows 7 for the first time, you will see similar desktop to the image below. At this point you can start using your computer. However it may not be fully configured. You need to make sure that all the hardware is detected correctly and the necessary device drivers are installed. This can be done from the device manager.

Step 21 - To go to device manager click - Start Menu -> Control Panel -> System and Security -> System -> Device Manager. You will see all your hardware listed as shown on the image below. You need to check if you have any yellow exclamation marks next to the name of the devices, similar to "Multimedia Audio Controller" on the image below. This indicates that the driver has not been installed for this device.

At this stage you can install the driver for this device. To do so, Right Mouse click on Multimedia Audio Controller -> Update Driver Software...

Step 22 - You can choose to "Search automatically for updated driver software" or "Browse my computer for driver software". If you have the driver CD or if the driver is on a USB drive then choose "browse my computer for driver software". Window 7 will search and install the driver from the CD or you can locate the driver manually.

Once you have removed all the yellow exclamation marks from the device manager your Windows 7 configuration would be fully complete.

Step 23 - Finally check if you have successfully activated Windows 7. Click Start Menu -> Control Panel -> System and Security -> System. You will get a window similar to the image below. Towards the bottom you will see Windows is activated followed by your product ID. This shows that your copy of Windows 7 is fully activated.

Some other things I prefer to do to avoid problems down the road:

1) Turn off Windows Update- from Control Panel, select Updates, and select never check for updates.




During install: Select Ask Later




Once installed, Start Control Panel

Select Windows Update, Change Settings from the left menu.

Select from the Important Updates drop down, Never check for updates, then select OK.

2) Turn off transparancy- Uses more system resources and makes it difficult to see menus sometimes. From Control Panel, Display, Themes, uncheck transparency.


3) Install a good free AntiVirus program like Avast , link below:

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/avast.html



Source: http://www.buildeasypc.com/sw/windows_7/install_windows_7.htm


You can also see a nice uTube video of how to install Windows 7 at the link below:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyMWz5UEgoI&feature=related

How to Copy a File Path to the Clipboard

By Rick Broida, PCWorld    Feb 15, 2012 2:15 PM

You know those times when you want to upload a new photo to, say, Facebook or Pinterest? The typical browser-based upload tool forces you to click through countless folders until you find the one you want. It's a slow and often maddening dance.
Fortunately, there's an easier way.

If you already have the photo open in Explorer, you can copy its file path to the clipboard, then paste that path into the upload dialog box. Here's how:
1. Open Windows Explorer and find the photo (or document) in question.
2. Hold down the Shift key, then right-click the photo.
3. In the context menu that appears, find and click Copy as path. This copies the file location to the clipboard. (FYI, if you don't hold down Shift when you right-click, the Copy as path option won't appear.)
4. Now, in your browser, head to Facebook or wherever, access the upload tool, and click Browse.
5. Press Ctrl-V to paste in the file location, then click OK.




That's all there is to it! No hunting through a bunch of folders to find the file you want--just paste the path and you're done.

I must give credit where credit is due; I first heard about this clever tip from Windows guru Ed Bott. But it's too great not to share; once you start using it, you'll wonder how you got along without it.
Contributing Editor Rick Broida writes about business and consumer technology. Ask for help with your PC hassles at hasslefree@pcworld.com, or try the treasure trove of helpful folks in the PC World Community Forums. Sign up to have the Hassle-Free PC newsletter e-mailed to you each week.

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/250061/how_to_copy_a_file_path_to_the_clipboard.html#tk.nl_wvx_h_crawl

How To Display Additional Details For A Folder In Windows 7

I enjoy having the MP3 bit rate showing in the File Explorer columns. Here is a tip how to have it always appear there.

If you have switched to Windows 7 from Vista you probably already know how to enable how to display attributes, rating, and other info in Windows 7 explorer. But if you have switched from XP, I’m certain that you are new to this.

 

Windows 7 explorer displays file name, date modified, type, and size for an application file. And it will also display title, contributing artists, and album name for music files. In other words, it will show a few information depending on the type of file. It shows the file rating, size, and other info of a particular file only when you select a particular file.

As a result of this, you can’t view all the info of a particular file. With a simple trick you can enable all these and additional information in Windows 7 explorer. Here is how to do it:

1. Open explorer, go View menu and click on Choose details to launch Choose Details dialog box. You can also right-click on the file attributes to open Choose Details. Alternatively use Alt + V + H keys to open Choose Details.

2.  Scroll down to see Attributes, Rating, size and other options. You can also select any other options that you would like to view in explorer.

3. Once you select all the options, click OK to apply it.

4. You will now see all the selected details in a particular folder only. To enable these details all the folders of this type, you need to apply these settings to all folders by using Tools menu (Alt + T) > Folder Options > View and then clicking on Apply to folders.

Source: http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-display-additional-details-for-a-folder-in-windows-7/

3 Easy Ways To Improve The Windows 7 Explorer

Windows Explorer is the file manager application that handles the Windows desktop and taskbar and lets you access your files. Without its nice graphical interface, controlling your computer would be a lot more complicated. It’s probably the Windows application that you interact with the most, and hence it’s worth looking into improvements that make it even more useful and efficient.

1. Customize Folder Options

Using the folder options you can tweak the appearance and behavior of your folders. You can reveal hidden files, edit the display of icons and thumbnails, or control how searches are performed.

You can access the Windows 7 folder options in several different ways. When you presently have a folder open, click Organize in the top left and then select Folder and search options from the menu. Another way is to search for the term ‘folder options‘ in the Start menu search and open the respective result under the Control Panel header. Finally, you can access the folder options via the Control Panel under Appearance and Personalization (screenshot below).





Clicking on Folder Options will launch the window displayed below. Within the General tab you can adjust basic things, such as the behavior of the Explorer navigation pane. I highly recommend to check both boxes. Before you do that, open a folder and see how it behaves after you hit Apply.




Switching over to the View tab, you can get into some more juicy details, such as enabling the folder menu pane, enabling the restoring of previous folder windows at logon, or enabling the use of check boxes to select items. An example of a customized folder is shown in the screenshot below.

2. Optimize File View & Preview

How do you prefer to view your files inside a folder? Do you like to view a list with details or just icons? You can set a different view for each folder, which is very convenient as folders contain different things that each demand a custom setting. To cycle through the different view options, simply click the respective button (red).





In the screenshot above you can see a preview of the selected image on the right. You can enable or disable the preview pane, as well as other panes, under > Organize > Layout.

3. Pin Favorite Folders To Explorer Jump List

The jump list is the list of options that come up when you right-click any item in the taskbar. To access specific folders faster, you can pin them to the Explorer jump list. This can help with un-cluttering the desktop. Simply right-click a folder icon inside Explorer and drag the folder to the taskbar (black). It will automatically be added to the Explorer jump list.





By the way, if your Windows Explorer is not currently pinned to the taskbar (icon with red frame in screenshot above), simply open any folder, e.g. your computer, right-click its icon in the taskbar and select Pin this program to taskbar from the menu.
Were these improvements not quite good enough? You might want to look into alternative file managers to replace Windows Explorer, for example these:

• SE-Explorer: A Portable Full-Featured Windows Explorer Alternative
• Forget Windows Explorer, Explorer++ Is The Perfect, Powerful Alternative
• The 5 Good Free Windows File Managers

If replacing Windows Explorer is a bit too radical for you, maybe you’re happy with simply editing it a little. The following tools can be of great help:

• How To Improve Windows Explorer With Additional Features Using FilerFrog
• Enhance Windows Explorer’s Context Menu With Shell Tools
• 6 Power Ways To Customize & Enhance Windows

You may also want to stay tuned for a follow-up article on advanced tricks and tips for working with Windows Explorer.

Source: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-easy-ways-improve-windows-7-explorer/