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Chapter 1

Installing Windows Vista Client

that hosts Windows Vista fills. This is especially the case if the person that you are building the

computer for likes to play computer games. Modern games take up many gigabytes of disk

space. If someone installs a new game each month, that person might use more than 100 GB

of storage capacity within a year! If you are ever asked to free up disk space on someone’s com-

puter, you should check whether the user has installed any games.

There are also good reasons to partition disks. Windows Vista allows you to create mirrored

volumes across separate disks as a way of protecting data. Although you will want to ensure

that the volume that hosts Windows Vista has as much space as possible, setting up a separate

volume to host data, such as Microsoft Office documents, simplifies setting up redundancy

and also greatly simplifies configuring backups.

CAUTION

Disks, partitions, and volumes

These three terms are sometimes used interchangeably in technical documentation. This can be

confusing for readers. A disk is the physical hard disk drive. A partition is a logical segmentation of

a hard disk drive. A volume is a formatted storage area contained within a partition. If you open

Windows Explorer, you are able to view only volumes. The only way that you can view disks and

partitions is through the Disk Management tool, which is accessible through the Computer Man-

agement console.

After these stages of the process are complete, the installation routine begins copying files

from the Windows Vista media to the newly created volume. Features are then installed. After

these aspects are completed, the installation reboots.

Your input is not required until the Windows Vista routine reaches the Choose A User Name

And Picture page. Here you are asked to enter a username and a password and to select a pic-

ture to represent your user account. You will need to enter the password twice and provide a

password hint, as shown in Figure 1-8. It is important for you to note that this account auto-

matically becomes a member of the local administrators group. For this reason, you should

make the username and password memorable, though be careful to keep them both secured.

Whoever has access to this username and password pair has complete control of this com-

puter. For this reason, you should also ensure that the hint you provide is not too obvious.

Unlike previous versions of Windows, Windows Vista ships with a built-in Administrator

account that is disabled by default. User accounts are discussed in greater detail in Chapter 4,

“Configuring and Troubleshooting Internet Access.”

The next step is to enter a computer name. Windows Vista offers a name based on the user-

name you entered in the preceding step. You should select a name that is informative rather

than wildly imaginative. Good computer names relate to the computer’s role. Accounts01 is an

excellent name for a Windows Vista computer used in a company’s accounting department.