Windows 7 Install Experience
On Friday, I downloaded Windows 7 beta, along with a million or so other people. I must say the install experience was quite easy. Here is what happens during the install.
For the first install I started with Virtual Box, I configured a machine with the following hardware:
- 12mb of video memory
- 1.2gb of memory
- 10gb of hard drive
I ended up changing lots of the hardware settings for virtual machine. The final configuration was
- 128mb of video memory
- 1.5gb of memory
- 16gb hard drive
In the next couple of days, I will try and write about some of the new features of Windows 7 from a user perspective and development perspective.
The installation
Start: Installation started
10 minutes into it: 1st dialog. Configure your language, time, currency and keyboard layout.
11 minutes into it: 2nd dialog. Click install to start.
13 minutes into it: Windows Installing
39 minutes into it: First Restart
41 minutes into it: Completing the installation
51 minutes into it: Machine restarted. Windows 7 is available
55 minutes into it: Customization starts. Configure the user and computer name, password, product key, auto update settings
59 minutes into it: Finalizing Windows 7 setup
59 minutes into it: Preparing desktop
1 hour 2 minutes into it: Windows 7 Ready
VirtualBox Guest Additions for Windows 7
Since Windows 7 is in beta, as of this writing, they do not have a the Virtual Box guest additions available. The Guest Additions let the guest operating system interact with the host operating system better. These interactions include better mouse support and sharing files.
You can install the guest additions with a little bit of work.
- Mount the Guest Additions ISO, Windows 7 will should automatically prompt you to run the file.
- Choose open in Explorer.
- Navigate to VirtualBox Guest Additions
- Right click on the VBoxWindowsAdditions-x86
- Click on Compatibility
- Under Compatibility mode, select “Run this program in compatibility more” and select Windows Vista.
- Click Ok
- Run VBoxWindowsAdditions-x86.
