Installing Windows Vista Beta 2

by Greg Shultz | May 31, 2006 7:00:00 AM

Tags: Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Operating systems, Greg Shultz, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Windows Vista

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Takeaway: Greg Shultz chronicles his Beta 2 installation experiences.

I finally got my hands on a copy of Windows Vista Beta 2 and wouldn't you know it, the motherboard in my test system bit the dust. My goal in testing Vista was to use the same system throughout the entire beta program in order to see how my hardware would fare with each successive release of Windows Vista. So I ordered a new, comparable motherboard that carried the same onboard ATI RadeonXpress 200 graphics system with 128 MB of shared memory and accepted my AMD Athlon 64 3400+ CPU. However, I did decide to add another 512MB chip to bump my RAM up to 1GB.

While I waited for the package to arrive, I read the Beta 2 Technical Reviewer's Guide from cover to cover. While it is, as expected, sprinkled with marketing material, it is also packed with pertinent information, lots of screen shots, and because it's a full color, glossy paper publication, was fun to read.

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Once my motherboard and RAM arrived, I reassembled my system, inserted the Beta 2 DVD and began the installation procedure. It, too, was a fun and painless experience. I will chronicle my Beta 2 installation experiences for this edition of the Windows Vista Report.

Getting started

As you probably know by now, Windows Vista's installation media is DVD, presumably due to the fact that the number and size of the installation files exceeded the 600MB to 800MB range of the standard CD. In any case, I booted the system from the DVD and Setup took over and displayed a relatively fast moving progress bar accompanied by a short message stating that Windows is loading files.

After a few minutes, the Windows Vista blue/green aura background appeared and everything went quiet--no DVD activity, not hard disk activity, nothing. Not sure if the installation had locked up or what was going on, I decided to sit back and see what would happen. After what seemed like an eternity, but was actually no more than 3 or 4 minutes, a dialog box appeared and prompted me to choose language settings. As such, during what appeared a frozen screen, Setup was actually busily preparing for the next step. (Hopefully, Microsoft will add some sort of progress indicator at this stage in a future release.)

The actual installation

Once I accepted the default English settings, I arrived at the Install Windows dialog box and noticed two new links titled What to know before installing Windows and System recovery options. The latter appears to be restoration tool of some sort, but I decided not to investigate it any further. Following the former link revealed a very detailed help screen, which included all sorts of installation tips and tricks. (It is a very nice adaptation of the old Readme file that I encourage all of you to keep in mind and take advantage of when you get and install your copy of Windows Vista.)

Clicking the Install Now button once again displayed the Windows Vista blue/green aura background, but this time accompanied by a Please wait message and an hourglass pointer. So I knew that something was happening in the background.

Within a minute or so, Setup moved into the Collecting information phase and I was prompted to input my product key for activation, accept the license agreement, and choose an installation type. Of course, the upgrade option is disabled and the clean install option is selected by default.

At this point, Setup moved into the Installing Windows phase and informed me that was all the information that it needed from me in order to proceed and that my computer would reboot several times. So I sat back and watched the percentage-based progress counters move forward in each of the five stages of the Installing Windows phase: Copying Windows files, Expanding files, Installing features, Installing updates, and Completing installation.

Finishing up

After about an hour and a half, the Installing Windows phase was complete and a wizard titled Set Up Windows appeared. As I walked through the wizard, I was prompted to select my country and keyboard layout, a username and password, a computer name, a desktop background, how I wanted to configure automatic updates, and finally to set the date and time zone. The wizard then informed me You're ready to start.

When I clicked the little start button, I was greeted by a logon screen. Once I logged on, I was notified that Windows Vista had found my network and was asked to identify it as either a private or public network.

As soon as that step was complete, I saw the Welcome Center, which provides you with basic information about your system as well as a group of icons that allow you to access/initiate common operations that you might want to perform after installing a new operating system. For example, you can set up devices, add new users, register Windows, or transfer files, just to name a few. Clicking a More Details button in the upper portion of the Welcome Center window will take you to the Performance Rating tool, where you can find out how your system measures up to Windows Vista.

Checking out the Performance rating

In previous editions of the Windows Vista Report, I explored the Windows System Performance Rating tool and reported my findings as well as the ratings from a few other beta testers. So I couldn't wait to see what my system's Performance Rating was in Beta 2--especially since Setup recognized and installed WDDM drivers for the onboard ATI RadeonXpress 200 graphics system, combined with the fact that I had added another 512MB of RAM to the system.

However, I discovered that while the category ratings had changed a bit, my overall rating is still a 2. Not bad considering the scale runs from 1 to 5 and this system is not top of the line anymore, but I was hoping for a 3.

Conclusion

As I begin to experiment with Windows Vista Beta 2 over the next couple of months, I'll be reporting more details on all of the new and improved features in this edition of the operating system. As always, if you have comments or information to share about your Windows Vista Beta 2 installation experiences or your Windows System Performance Rating, please take a moment to drop by the Discussion area and let us hear.

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