Buena Vista?

So, I was going to write, "just install Windows Vista" here, but no, the Vista installation is just as screwed up as the rest of the Vista. I don't know why that surprised me, but I thought that after the excellent and understandable XP installation, they would not need to change anything for Vista, but I was wrong. My biggest beef with the process is that it doesn't have a final Are you Ready? dialog, just like Vista doesn't ask you if you're sure you want to log off. Accidentally click the wrong button and you're out of there. My second complaint is that there is a clearly labeled Next button at the bottom right hand side of the installation pages, but what if you want to go back? Well, you use the arrow button in the upper left hand corner of the page. Who dreamed that up? Either a pair of Next and Back buttons, or a pair of arrow buttons. Not one of each! And put them next to each other! Gee whiz. It's like a SciFi movie where the descendants of an ancient race have forgotten how to use the technology of the "old ones". Oh well, enough of the rant, let's get down to business.

1. Power on the machine, insert the Vista DVD into the optical drive and close the door.
   
2. On the first page, select the Language, Time, and Currency Format.
   
3. In the next page, click Install Now.
   
4. Take out a magnifying glass, read the Product Key from the back of the DVD case and enter it into the field on the next page.
   
5. Accept the License Terms.
   
6. Choose Custom (advanced) installation.
   
7. On the Where do you want to Install Windows? page, this it where you want to be careful not to press the Enter key before you're ready. You're just one button away from installation. Choose Drive Options. This will give you further options for partitioning the hard drive.
   
8. You should see Disk 0 Unallocated Space. Again, be careful not to hit Enter. If the hard drive space shows that it has already been allocated, select Delete (Alt-D) to remove it. Then select New (Alt-W) to allocate a new partition.
   
9. Enter the size for the operating system's partition, in megabytes. I looked at the Microsoft website and they were recommending 40 GB for Vista, but I decided to leave lots of space for the installation of programs and gave it 100 GB. So, I entered 100000 MB for the partition size and selected Apply (Alt-P).
   
10. Make sure that your new 97.7 GB partition is selected and finally press Next (Alt-N). (I'll format the remaining disk space later.)
    
11. The installation will begin.
    
12. At the Choose a user name and picture page, enter a user name, password and hint. Select the picture and then hit Enter. (If you tab away from the picture, it will loose the picture selection.)
    
13. Enter the name for the computer. Select a desktop background and press Enter.
    
14. At the Help protect Windows automatically page, go ahead and select Use recommended settings, although I'll probably turn off the firewall later as there's already a firewall in the router of my network.
    
15. Set your time zone. Correct the date and time, if necessary. Setting the date is a little odd. You can select a new day of the month, but the currently selected date is still highlighted. If you hit Enter, it will take you to the next page.
    
16. Hit Alt-S to start the second phase of the installation.
    
17. While Windows checks the computer's performance, Microsoft advertisements will display on the screen.
    
18. Login. At this point, you will have no network access, but don't panic.
    
19. Insert the Gigabyte Drivers DVD and let it run.
    
20. If necessary, select Chipset Drivers. The only thing controversial about the Chipset Drivers is the Browser Configuration Utility. I'll let you make your own call here. As for me, I selected Install All.
    
21. After the installation of the chipset drivers, Vista will restart. (It did not ask me if I wanted to wait until later, it just did it.)
    
22. A small message box will probably appear indicating there is a Problem Reports and Solutions message. On my machine, it told me that my computer's Away Mode System is incompatible with the 64-bit version of Windows. The problem here may be that the drivers which Gigabyte installed are 32-bit. I did a bit of searching on the Internet and couldn't find a better set of drivers. It is not clear how important this feature is, but until you find a better driver or disable this feature in the BIOS Setup, the system Device Manager will show a device without drivers.
    
23. If your machine connects directly to the internet, select Connect to the Internet. If you have a home network, this step is unnecessary.
    
24. Click on Register Windows online. Fill out the online registration. This will require a Windows Live ID. If you don't have one, it looks like you'll need to get one.
    
25. Don't bother with the AMD/ATI Registration unless you have a separate ATI graphics card. Check Don't show me this again and click No.
    
26. The Gigabyte Install Chipset Driver program restarted after the reboot and, for some reason, the Gigabyte Install Chipset Drivers puts up a message box stating Install finish. Please reboot your computer., even though the reboot happened already. Go ahead and reboot your computer. Now that Vista has access to the internet, it has probably downloaded a bunch of high priority updates and now is a good time to install them.
    
27. Autoplay the Gigabyte CD again and select the Application Software tab. Install EasyTune 6. On my system, this did not appear to run, but was in fact behind other windows. Go find it and let it install. In sequence, install DMI Viewer, Face-Wizard, @BIOS and Update Manager.
    
28. Insert CD for optical drive's drivers. For my LG drive, I opted to install CyberLink PowerProducer, SecurDisk Viewer (although I'm still not sure what is does) and the Firmware update program. I decided to not install Nero Essential at this time. (I am not positive that the Firmware update program was such a good idea. Every time it runs, Vista asks if it can run. Given that firmware updates to the DVD drive are rare, this may not be worth the annoyance.)
    
29. Bring up the Control Panel and select System. Go to the bottom of the window and verify that Windows has been activated. If it has not, then click on the link and complete the activation.
    
30. In the system Notification Area (lower right, near the time), there will be a small red icon with the letters ATI. Right click on it and select Catalyst Control Center. When the control center opens, find the Welcome Center and select Check for Driver Updates. This will take you to the AMD/ATI website. In the left hand list box, select your operating system. Mine is Windows Vista 64-bit Edition. In the center list box, select the product family. If you have a separate Radeon graphic card, select Radeon. If you are using the graphics chip on the motherboard, select Integrated/Motherboard. Mine was the Integrated/Motherboard. In the right hand list box, select your graphic hardware. Despite the fact that my north bridge chip set is the 780 G, the graphics hardware is a Radeon HD 3200. Look at the Catalyst Control Center to find the graphics hardware that you are using. Do not guess, make sure! When you press the GO button, you'll be presented with a list of drivers to install. There may be two options, one with all the drivers and the latest Catalyst Control Center bundled into one download, and another with the display driver and the Catalyst Control Center separate. Download the one that you wish. Also look for other drivers such as the South Bridge and RAID, if you have multiple hard drives and have set them up as a RAID. I didn't find the HydraVision software all that interesting, and can't recommend spending the time to download it. I do recommend downloading all of the updates first and then installing them. They'll all want to reboot the computer and there's no need to have to navigate to the ATI website multiple times.

From here, I started personalizing Vista according to my tastes, and I'll not take the time to record those changes here. However, there is one more thing that I did, which I found nerve racking enough to want to put it in a separate post: updating the firmware on the motherboard. (Yikes!)