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Posted
on October 12, 2001 by Thomas
McGuire
Post
installation
By
now you'll have successfully installed your Operating
System, & as such finished the most time consuming part
of Installing & Configuring your new Windows
installation. That said, there is still much left to do.
Your main concern for now will be ensuring all your Hardware
devices have been detected & installed correctly. Even
if they are, then you'll still want to install the latest
drivers for them. The next few sections will cover this in
greater detail.
Obviously
the first thing to do is create a connection to your ISP.
Downloading
Updates/Drivers
First
of, if you are using Windows 2000 the first thing to do is
download & install Service
Pack 2. I'd strongly recommend doing this before anything
else, as it will avoid many potential problems that
could be caused by installing anything else first.
You
can find a listing of system Updates/Patches for Windows 98,
Me & 2000 in our very own OS
Updates page. This page also contains links to updated
Chipset Drivers for Intel & VIA, essential if you have
such Motherboards.
While
for other Hardware you can find links to Drivers for a large
amount of Hardware on our Drivers
page. In the interest of having the newest Drivers you
would generally be better off using Reference drivers rather
than a Manufacturers driver as they are invariably based on
the Reference driver, albeit it with the Manufacturers logo
& perhaps some other customisations. Also, some
Manufacturers are very slow to update their drivers, if at
all, e.g. Creative.
Installing
updates order
The
order of installation for the Drivers/Patches, etc. which
you may have just downloaded can be rather awkward to define
accurately, as such use the following guidelines. As
noted before, if you are using Windows 2000 install Service
Pack 2 first before anything else.
1.
Install
any Chipset Drivers available.
2.
Install
latest DirectX.
3.
Install
Graphics Card Driver. NOTE - Some Graphics cards
drivers contain their own AGP Driver files; as such you may
need to re-install your Chipsets AGP Driver as a result.
4.
Install
Soundcard Driver.
5.
Install
any other Hardware Device Drivers.
6.
Install
latest Internet Explorer.
7.
Install
other relevant updates/patches/hotfixes.
Before
installing Graphics card/Soundcard or other Hardware device
Drivers, check the next section for how to properly install
drivers.
Updating
Drivers
Drivers
come in many packages, e.g. some may need to be manually
installed, while others need extracting, then execution of a
setup file. More commonly now is simply executable files
which self-extract & auto-run installation. Either way,
there are still some steps you should take before installing
updates. Where appropriate I'll mention in brackets any
differences for Windows 2000. NOTE - These steps will be of
more use when you are installing further updated Drivers,
rather than installing updated versions of the default
Windows Drivers, if any. Also you should only install
1 Device at a time, installing multiple Hardware devices may
cause problems, e.g. Soundcard & DVD Decoder, rather
install the Soundcard solely only install the DVD Decoder
after the Soundcard is fully installed.
1.
Extract
the Driver files to a directory on your Desktop (Depending
on the Driver package of course).
2.
Click
on Start, Settings, Control Panel. Open
Add/Remove Programs. Uninstall your Hardware
from here if it is listed, this should be the case with
Hardware installed using automated routines, e.g. Philips
Acoustic Edge. Reboot as required to complete
uninstallation from here if available. NOTE - The following
steps should be taken regardless of whether or not the
Device was uninstalled from Add/Remove Programs.
3.
Right
click
on My Computer & select Properties.
4.
Select
the Device Manager tab (In Windows 2000 select the Hardware
tab, then the Device Manager button).
5.
Expand
the relevant tree for your Hardware device, e.g. Graphics
card will be located in the Display Adapters section
& so on. Select the Device & select the Properties
button. In the Driver tab select the Driver
Details button, if available & make a note of the
files listed (In Windows 2000 use the Update Driver
wizard to determine the *.inf file currently
used for the Device & make a note of it, this file will
be located in the WINNT\Inf folder).
6.
Select
Ok then hit the Remove button to Uninstall the
Devices current Drivers.
7.
Open
Windows Explorer & open the Windows\Inf\Other
folder (In Windows 2000 this will be WINNT\Inf by default).
Delete the *.inf file for the Device removed, if
available. NOTE - You may need to view the files contents in
order to determine whether or not you have selected the
correct file to delete.
8.
Reboot
the machine.
9.
When
Windows boots up, the Hardware Device will be detected via
Plug & Play. When prompted by the Update Driver
Wizard navigate to the folder on the Desktop where you have
extracted the Driver files to & select Ok.
Windows will now install the Driver for the Device. Reboot
the machine as requested by Windows (Or even if not) after
installation has completed.
10.
For
Drivers that use self-installing packages simply select Cancel
in the Update Driver wizard & let Windows load as
normal. Once fully loaded run the installation executable to
begin installation & reboot as required. Please check
any readme file that comes with the package for
further details.
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