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Chapter 1

Installing Windows Vista Client

Before You Begin

In this chapter, you will install Windows Vista. You will use this copy of Windows Vista in

practice exercises throughout the book. To complete the practices in this and later chapters,

you must have a computer capable of running Windows Vista, either directly or within a vir-

tual machine.

Real World

Orin Thomas

I have found virtual machines to be one of the most useful tools in preparing for certifi-

cation examinations. When I was studying for my Windows NT 4 MCSE, I used a test lab

of three spare computers in addition to my normal workstation to practice various con-

figurations. Today, I can achieve all of that using a single computer running Virtual

Server 2005 R2. Virtual Server 2005 R2 can be installed on a Windows XP or Windows

Server 2003 computer and is freely available from Microsoft’s website. After you have

installed Virtual Server, you can then create a virtual machine and install an edition of

Windows Vista to use with the practices in this book. The main thing to ensure is that

your host computer has lots of spare hard disk space and RAM. Adding more RAM and

hard disk space is far cheaper than obtaining spare computers! All of my virtual

machines are installed on an external universal serial bus (USB) hard disk drive, which

is an easy way of expanding your computer’s storage capacity. Another benefit of using

virtual machines to study with this training kit is the undo disks function. If you flub

something during a practice, you can reset the virtual machine’s state without having to

reinstall from scratch. The practice in Lesson 2, “Installing Windows Vista,” explaining

how to install Windows Vista includes more information about how to configure a vir-

tual machine.