CompTIA A+® Certification All-In-One For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

3.2. Preparing for Installation

After talking to many people in the industry about installing different OSes or servers, I have come to realize that one thing that always requires more time is planning. Many people tell me that they can't do any actual work until their head office sends them the server. However, the best time to do your installation and disaster planning might be while the server is being shipped. Planning your installation or deployment of the OS to the desktops can save you time and money in the long run by helping you to anticipate any issues that might arise and to have the solutions ready when the time comes.

This section helps you identify some points you need to consider when installing a new Windows OS. Before jumping into the installation, be sure that you plan a number of installation decisions. Some things you will be asked about during the installation are

• Hardware requirements

• Computer name

• Workgroup/domain

• Partitions

• File systems

• Application support

3.2.1. Hardware requirements

You first prepare to install an OS by finding the OS's hardware requirements and making sure that the computer fits the bill. Table 3-1 shows the minimum hardware requirements for the different Windows OSes

Table 3.1. Windows Hardware Requirements

Hardware Component	Windows 2000	Windows XP	Windows Vista
Processor	Pentium 133 MHz	Pentium 233 MHz	800 MHz processor
Memory	64MB (128MB is recommended)	64MB (minimum) (128MB is recommended)	512MB (minimum) (1GB is recommended)
Hard disk space	650MB ...