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Build Your First PC – Part 6 Installing Windows The main system box is now built and raring to go. All we need to get going is Windows. However, we’ll also need a keyboard & mouse to talk to the PC with! With that in mind, let’s take a quick look at that before we move on to installing Windows XP. Of Mice and Men Rather than go for a plain and boring mouse and keyboard, I’ve decided to use something a bit special. Sometimes it can be a pain having wires trailing everywhere, especially when you’re working some distance from your PC, perhaps if you’re a musician with a MIDI keyboard. Enter the wireless keyboard. I’m using the Logitech Cordless Desktop iTouch (www.logitech.com) which consists of a wireless keyboard and mouse.
The whole thing works very well and given the £65 price tag, the 5 year guarantee is a welcome bonus. It also looks good and is pleasant to type on which is, after all, what it is about. Windows XP Windows XP (www.microsoft.com) can be booted and installed directly from the CD. Most modern motherboards are preconfigured to boot off CD if there is no operating system on the hard disk. Your motherboard manual will show you how to change this in the BIOS if not. Installation of XP is surprisingly painless and consists of loading the Windows XP CD and rebooting. After the PC initialises itself, it will start to load the setup files off the CD. There is no real trick to the next stage apart from sitting back and watching for about 20 minutes. Of course, if you bought any hardware that isn’t Windows XP friendly then you may have some problems but if you did your homework then all will be well. If you are unsure, Microsoft has a list on its web site of which hardware is understood by XP. During the installation process you’ll be asked a few questions such as how you want the hard disk to be set up and where you want XP installed. Unless you’re comfortable with changing this, go with the defaults. Otherwise, you can partition the drive and use different formats to get it how you want. You’ll also be asked to confirm or change the time and date, your location and timezone (usually GMT) and a few other bits. Just follow the prompts and instructions. Once done, Windows will reboot and lo and behold you have an almost working PC. Almost I hear you gasp? Well, yes. You’ll have the latest drivers that Microsoft had at the time they started to manufacturer the Windows XP CDs. It may well be that better ones are available and hopefully, if you’ve been following this series, you’ll have these ready to hand. You can now install these along with the drivers that would have been supplied with the motherboard. Once these are all done, you are up and running. One final chore is to register Windows XP. Unless you do this, it will stop working within 30 days of installation. This little pain is Microsoft’s attempt at stopping the vast amount of operating system piracy they are suffering. A good idea in theory but it can be a pain for honest users. It’s easy to do though, simply follow the instructions to dial the UK number and then when prompted, enter the serial number. The system will give you a number back. Enter this in to Windows XP and you are now fully legal. If you want a dual boot system perhaps with Win98 and XP together, it is better to install Win98 first. The XP installation routines recognise the presence of an existing operating system and gives you the choice of keeping the existing operating system and creating a menu for you to choose from when booting. Tidying Up Your PC is now built. What you do now is up to you. I’d recommend tweaking any features and settings to your own preferred way of working and also installing any ‘must have’ bits of software such as anti-virus tools. XP has a built in Firewall you can use but something like ZoneAlarm is a better bet as the built in one has some limitations. XP also has built in support for ZIP files but again, Adding WinZip gives you more flexibility. Once these are all loaded up you can sit back, pat yourself on the back and start to enjoy your new PC.
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small translucent receiver plugs in to the keyboard and mouse
sockets at the back of the PC and handles the wireless communication
with the keyboard and mouse. The receiver includes a USB/PS/2
adapter so you can also plug the mouse cable in via a USB socket if
desired. As it stands, this will now work straight away and you can
sit back (quite a