Windows XP Professional: The Missing Manual

Setup Wizard

Most of the installation procedures described here wind up at the Setup Wizard, which debuts with a Welcome to Microsoft Windows screen. When you click Next, this wizard guides you through the process of:

• Identifying how you plan to connect to the Internet (dial-up modem, cable modem/DSL, or network).

  WORKAROUND WORKSHOPUsing an Image Disk

  It’s becoming increasingly common for computer manufacturers to sell you a new PC without including an operating system CD-ROM. (Every 11 cents counts, right?) The machine has Windows installed on it—but if there’s no Windows installation CD, what are you supposed to do in case of emergency?

  Instead of a physical Windows CD, the manufacturer provides something called an image disk—a CD-ROM containing a complete copy of the operating system and other software that was installed on the computer at the factory. If the contents of the computer’s hard disk are ever lost or damaged, you can, in theory, restore the computer to its factory configuration by running a program on the image disk.

  Of course, this image is a bit-by-bit facsimile of the computer’s hard disk drive, and therefore, restoring it to your computer completely erases whatever files are a lready on the drive. You can’t restore your computer from an image disk without losing all of the data you saved since you got the computer from the manufacturer. (Talk about a good argument for keeping regular backups!)

  But completely reinstalling Windows isn’t the only time that you need a ...