Installing the Core Operating System

• 1). Power on the computer with the Vista OEM system disc inserted into the optical drive.
  
  
• 2). Choose to boot from CD/DVD when prompted.
  
  
• 3). Enter CMOS setup and change the boot order to boot to the optical drive before the hard drive if the system does not provide an opportunity to boot from the CD/DVD drive.
  
  
• 4). Choose to install Vista from the startup menu.
  
  
• 5). Choose complete installation, as the OEM version of Vista does not allow for upgrades to an existing operating system.
  
  
• 6). Select the advanced option and format the primary hard drive partition that is to be used for Vista. Optionally, format any other partitions at this time, or delete all partitions and create one large unpartitioned space out of the primary hard drive.
  
  
• 7). Choose the destination partition or empty space and proceed with the installation, following any prompts that appear for choices such as date/time and user name and password.
  
  

Drivers and Updates

• 1). Open the Device Manager from the Control Panel and examine each piece of hardware in the list to determine if any need drivers installed.
  
  
• 2). Insert the driver disc and follow the autorun prompts for any hardware that needs a driver update. Optionally download the driver from the manufacturer's website and install it manually by choosing the hardware item from the Device Manager list and specifying the location of the driver files from the Update Driver Software choice on the right-click menu.
  
  
• 3). Run the Windows Update utility from Internet Explorer or from the start menu and install all high priority updates and patches along with all desired optional and hardware updates. Once this step completes, be sure to run it again until no more updates are found, as many updates require previous updates before they become available. It may take several rounds of updates to become fully updated.
  
  
• 4). Turn on automatic updating after all the current updates are installed to keep the computer up to date.
  
  
• 5). Install any additional software desired and check for updates for each software package installed.