Getting started with Windows XP Pro

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Posted on Wednesday, November 4, 2009
This article was posted in Microsoft

[1.1] Windows XP Professional hardware requirements

  • Processor minimum P233, recommended PII 300
  • RAM minimum 64Mb, recommended 128Mb
  • Disk Space minimum 1.5Gb, recommended 2Gb
  • Network needed if installing using it
  • Display minimum SVGA 800×600 or better
  • Peripheral devices: keyboard and mouse (or other pointing device)
  • CD-ROM or DVD-ROM if installing from CD, recommended 12x or faster
  • Floppy drive if you intend to use ASR (Automated System Recovery)
  • Windows XP Professional supports up to 2 CPUs, while Windows XP Home edition supports only 1 CPU, there are not other hardware requirement differences between Windows editions
[1.2] Windows XP Professional install steps
  • Collecting information
    • Insert Windows XP CD and reboot the PC
    • Setup program starts when you boot from the CD. Press F6 for third party disk driver, F2 for automatic recovery
    • A welcome dialog box appears, press enter to install XP, R for repair of XP installation, F3 to quit
    • Licensing agreement, F8 to accept, ESC to refuse
    • Partitions screen appears
    • Copying of setup files
    • Remove CD and reboot PC
  • Installing Windows
    • Regional settings, choose locale (numbers, currencies, dates and times view options) and keyboard layouts
    • User name and organization screen
    • Product key screen, 25 character key
    • Computer name
      • up to 15 bytes for NetBIOS compatibility
      • 1 byte is 1 character in most languages (2 in say Chinese)
      • FQDN has a limit of 155 bytes for DC in Windows 2000/2003 (255 bytes in NT 4.0)
      • Computer name has a limit of 63 bytes
      • Computer name has to be unique on the network
    • Administrative password
    • If you have a plug and play modem, you set it up now
    • Date and time
    • Network settings
    • Work group name or domain affiliation
    • Automated finishing tasks
[1.3] Install options
  • For clean install/upgrade on computers running win 3.x or DOS (16 bit systems) use winnt.exe
  • For install/upgrade on computers running 32 bit OS use winnt32.exe
[1.4] After installation
  • The default network setup is for the Windows XP to be a DHCP client
  • You need to activate your product within 30 days unless you have corporate licence
  • After 30 days you will not be able to logon to your PC without activation if you log out or restart your PC (you will still be able to access your PC in safe mode without network support)
  • Activation can be done over the phone or online
  • There are three log files created after installation
    • %systemdir%\setupact.log – installation actions log
    • %systemdir%\setuperr.log – errors that occurred during installation
    • %systemdir%\netsetup.log – network related log (like domain joining)
[1.5] Support for multiboot
  • Windows XP will configure multiboot automatically if it detect compatible OS (i.e. Microsoft OS) and you are using clean install option
  • Do not use dynamic disks or NTFS if the other OS doesn’t support it
  • Windows XP will not be able to read volumes compressed with Windows NT4 compression
[1.6] Joining a domain
  • You can pre-authorize a computer in the AD
  • Or, you can enter user name and password of the domain user that has ‘Add computers to the domain’ permission to add computer to the AD
[1.7] Laptop special Windows XP features
  • Credential manager
  • Clear type
  • Hot docking
[1.8] Other points
  • Hardware compatibility list (HCL) http://www.microsoft.com/hcl/ now Windows catalog http://www.microsoft.com/windows/catalog/
  • If hardware is not found in the Windows catalog you will not get any support from Microsoft
  • BIOS is preferred with ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) functionality, APM (Advanced Power Management) is the API for ACPI hardware
  • If you are upgrading from Windows 98/Me checks whatever there are drivers for your hardware, since 98/Me drivers are VxDs (virtual device drivers) and don’t work on Windows XP
  • You can upgrade from Windows 98/Me/NT4/NT3.51/2000 Pro (due to a bug win95 will qualify as upgrade media but only for clean install)
  • System partition is the location of the files that are needed for Windows XP to boot, vary little space, default is the active partition
  • Boot partition is the location of Windows XP OS (all files)
  • Note that Microsoft changed the default directory for installation from WINNT to WINDOWS
  • Installation files are in \I386 directory on the CD
  • WFP – Windows file protection is used to protect Windows system DLL files from modification, files are stored in %SystemRoot%\System32\Dllcache
  • Sfc.exe – scans and verifies the versions of all protected system files when the computer is booting
  • Dynamic update runs during installation of Windows XP. You can disable it with /dudisable switch of winnt32, /duprepare:pathname to prepare network share for dynamic update files, /dushare:pathname to specify network share with dynamic update files

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