Rebuilding Vista from Scratch

How to rebuild a PC's Vista Operating System, with complete steps and hints on how to make the process as efficient as possible. This is an admittedly lengthy and somewhat technical article with detailed steps.

A summary / checklist of this article - can be found at:
Rebuilding Vista - Summary

During the past several months I've had the opportunity to re-format several PC's and re-install the operating systems from scratch. Of course, this begs the question: Why? Sometimes I blunder so badly in my experimenting that it necessitates such actions. And other times I've run into a problem so difficult to solve, it seems easier to start over. Naturally, a good backup is the best way to recover, but if you do not have one, follow these steps.

This article describes the checklist that I use when re-installing Microsoft Vista (and many of these same ideas work with XP). You will find there is some common sense as well as some pitfalls to watch for. With up-front preparation, and this checklist, you can minimize the time spent rebuilding the computer; without these, it can easily take several days to recover. To help with the backups, an external USB hard disk is recommended.

These steps assume you have a functional system or have access to another computer where you can download needed drivers and software, etc. These steps are not appropriate for recovering data on a failed system. If your drive has failed or is corrupted, recover as much of data as possible before attempting the steps listed here. If the system is not bootable, consider this Linux Boot CD < Knoppix Bootable CD ISO file, direct link > which may let you break into the drive in order to manually copy important data. You can also attach the failed drive to another PC as a secondary (slave) drive.

Prerequisites:

Many of these steps can be done leisurely and should be done several days before the actual event.

A. Begin by making a bootable disk-image of your entire system

Only do this if your system is currently bootable: If you have a recommended external USB drive, it probably came with a program to do this. Alternately, use a program such as Acronis or Ghost, etc. In the event of a disaster, you will recover to this image. See my previous article, "Disk Imaging Cleanup Steps" for ways to make the backup faster and smaller.

B. Create a "click-and-drag backup" (a second backup) of your data folders

These are more accessible than the full-system backup and expect to use this for your recovery. Make the backup on an External USB or DVD/CD by using Windows Explorer to drag-and-drop the following folders:

C:\Users\
C:\Data (if present)

The "Users" folder (Documents and Settings in XP) contains the "MyDocuments" folder, which is probably a majority of your data, but if there are other data folders in other directories, be sure to snag them too. It is easy to miss data so do this with care. When copying your profile, you may get "in-use" messages; this is ok; skip or ignore them.

Large collections of Music and Video files will take significant time and disk space to copy; plan your time accordingly. If you have other user accounts on the computer, copy those directories also. When making the backup, confirm the target drive is a different physical disk than your main partition.

C. Backup miscellaneous Program Directories

If you have a ProgramFiles\Utility directory (of various utility applications) that are not "installed", make a backup of this directory (For example, I have stand-alone programs such as PKZip, WinDiff, IconEditors, etc.). Hopefully, they are in a common Utility directory and you don't have to hunt around the disk to find them.


D. Download OEM hardware drivers

From your hardware vendor's (OEM) website, download the current drivers for your specific computer model. If you are using the vendor's "recovery" disk, the drivers are not required but even with the recovery disk, updated versions are recommended and likely fix bugs. The downloaded drivers should include at least the following:

BIOS
Chipset
Nic Drivers (also called Intel INF Utilities)
Audio Drivers
Video Drivers
Media Reader Drivers (camera-card/io)
TouchPad Drivers / Wireless Mice

E. Pre-download the following service packs

Having a local copy of various service packs makes the day-of-the-install a thousand-times faster. When downloading, confirm you have the actual download and not the downloader-stub from the vendor's website. Each vendor has different ways to get these files. For example, Microsoft calls their files "re-distributables" while other vendors have different links which download the "full" package. You can tell a "real" download by the file-size: it should be several megabytes.

Windows Vista SP1 (if not on your OEM disk)
Microsoft .DotNet Framework 2.0 (XP), 3.5 SP1 (Vista).
Printer Drivers ("Drivers only")

Microsoft Office (your version) Service Packs
Download other large service packs (such as WordPerfect, PaintShop Pro, Photoshop, etc)

F. Pre-download other required applications

In addition to service packs, also pre-download other miscellaneous application installations. For example:

Firefox, Thunderbird,
Acrobat Reader,
Music Players (itunes), etc.

G. Confirm you have all installation media for commercial applications

Confirm you have your installation disks for WordPerfect, Office, Quicken, etc. It is painful to re-format a hard disk to only discover later that you can't install your important applications.

H. Double-check all data backups

...including checkbook and banking records, photos, resumes, letters to Grandma, etc. This is your last chance. For all of my computers, all data, macros, templates, graphics and photos are in my C:\Data folder so backing them up is easy.

All of this preparation is meant to save time. For every file you have pre-downloaded, the faster your rebuild will be. Once the disk is erased, you will become more nervous with each passing hour; make the downtime as short as possible. You don't have time to hunt and download these files. Spend the time up-front.

The Day of Reckoning

Once the downloads and backups are complete, begin the actual install. All data and programs on your computer will be destroyed. If you are nervous, see above.

Decision:
The operating system disk comes in three different flavors. Most OEMs (Dell, Gateway, HP, MPC, Toshiba, Sony) have an Operating System "Recovery" disk, which includes a factory-default "image", as-if the PC were fresh out of the box. More rarely, you may have a Microsoft-supplied "full" installation, retail or a purchased Vista "Upgrade" disk. Each has slightly different installation steps.

If you have:
OEM "Recovery Disk", see Process A.
Vista "Retail Disk", see Process B.
Vista "Upgrade Disk", see Process C.

Process A: Vendor-supplied "Recovery Disk":

Using the vendor's recommended procedures, typically insert the bootable recovery disk, and boot the PC. Follow the prompts and warnings to install. On some PC's, you press a special key (F12), when booting at the BIOS screen. When done, goto Step 1.

Process B: Vista Retail Disk:

Boot from the Microsoft Vista Retail disk. Choose a 'New' install (you do not want to "upgrade" or repair). Choose the "Custom" installation option, where you are presented with a disk-partitioning utility. Delete the old partition (usually the largest one) and there is no need to Format. If desired, this same step be used to delete other partitions on the disk and you can roll them up into "Unallocated Space". Highlight Unallocated and click Next to continue the installation. Follow all prompts to install the OS.

Process C: A Purchased Vista "Upgrade Disk":

Microsoft does not provide a direct way to do a "clean" install of Vista from an Upgrade disk, but there is a work-around that is unofficially sanctioned by Microsoft. The steps are annoyingly time-consuming but result in a clean install.

Boot from the upgrade disk. When prompted to Upgrade, skip this step and choose a 'New' installation. Follow the procedures outlined in Process-B, deleting partitions, etc. Install the base operating system. When prompted for the Installation code, leave the field blank and do not allow the install to "activate." When prompted for the correct Vista version, you must select the version you actually own (Home, Business, Ultimate).

After the initial OS is installed, and you are presented with a desktop, re-insert the upgrade-DVD, launch Windows Explorer, and re-run Setup.exe. From here, allow Vista to "upgrade" the un-registered base-installation. Allow it to copy the "old" version of Windows to Windows.old. Type the installation code and allow it to activate the program.


Rebuilding the Computer

Once the Operating System is installed, follow these steps to re-build the PC.

1. Disconnect the Ethernet cable (or turn off the Wireless).
You do not need the computer trying to download updates while you prep the initial machine.

2. Select Explorer's "MyComputer", Properties and see if Vista is at Service Pack 1. If not, install SP1 now. This will take an hour to install.

3. Using Windows Explorer, manually delete directory 'C:\Windows.old'.

Then cleanup the SP1 Installation files by running this program; do this even if your OEM disk included SP1:
"C:\Windows\System32\vsp1cln.exe"

4. In MyComputer, Properties, "Advanced System Settings," make these changes:

Computer Name: Change, WorkGroup to your home/office Workgroup name, if necessary.

In "Advanced", Environment Variables, delete the top (User) section's "TEMP" and "TMP" variables. In the bottom (Machine) section, modify both TEMP and TMP to read:

TEMP = C:\Temp

The goal is move all temporary files out of your Profile; this makes for a more stable machine.

5. With Explorer, create the directory C:\Temp.

6. Temporarily disable UAC.
In Control Panel, "User Accounts", click "Turn User Account Control" off. Later, this can be turned back on, but for now, this will save a few hundred clicks while you setup the workstation.

Reboot the computer so the UAC and Temp take effect.

7. Install all Vendor OEM hardware drivers (ChipSet, Nic, Video, Audio, others). This will probably require several reboots. When done, confirm the Control Panel, Device Manager has no yellow exclamation-marks; meaning all of your hardware was installed properly. If other hardware is missing, it can probably wait to be resolved later.

8. Change the CD/DVD Drive letter.
In Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Storage, Disk Management, scroll down the bottom, center disk-list, locating your CD Rom Drive.

"Other-mouse-click" the CD/DVD drive and change the Drive Letter from (D:) to W:

(It is best to have the CD Drive letter far away from C:; this way, when you add new hard disks, the drive letters do not shift. I recommend using "W" for "Write," if CD/DVD/R). Similarly, if you have Media Card Slots, which also take up drive letters, consider moving them to J,K,L, etc., if the software allows. Again, moving them away from drive letter C: and D:.

9. I recommend manually creating these directories.

C:\Temp
C:\Data\
C:\Data\Prefs

(I actually have a slew of C:\data\directories and C:\Data\Prefs folders and I point all of my applications to these structures. This is a topic for a future article.)

10. Reconnect the ethernet cable and confirm you can surf the web.

11. Confirm Windows is Activated.

In MyComputer, Properties, scroll to the bottom and confirm Windows is Activated; Activate if necessary. Do not bother to "Register Vista" as this has nothing to do with Activation.

12. Use Microsoft Update to apply all of the latest patches.

In MyComputer, Properties, select "Windows Update" (on the bottom, left). Allow Windows to update the base-OS to the latest patches. This may take a while and these are nearly impossible to pre-download. Reboots may be required.

13. Install all major application software.

For all installations, I recommend selecting "Advanced" or "Custom" setups so you can peruse the options and only install what you need. Install these types of programs:

Microsoft Office
WordPerfect, etc.
Photo-editors
Mozilla / Thunderbird

After the browsers are installed, install these Adobe products, by installing the pre-download files or connecting to Adobe.com:

Adobe Acrobat Viewer
Adobe Flash Player
Adobe Shockwave Player

14. Install Printer Drivers and Share the printers if needed.

15. Uninstall Bloatware.

If your OEM image came with a lot of "bloatware" (trial software), take the time to de-install them now using the Control Panel, "Programs and Features" (formerly Add-Remove programs).

16. Connect to Windows Update a second time and allow it to update the Microsoft Suite.

17. Cleanup StartMenu and Desktop icons to your liking. Spiff wallpapers, screen savers and other personalized items. See previous article, "Vista Spiffs 1" for ideas and hints.

18. Re-enable UAC, per Microsoft's recommendations, although admittedly, many of you will leave it disabled. Consider this solution: Stopping Vista's UAC Nag

19. If you are a geek, optionally consider optimizing the Windows Swap File; See article Optimizing the Windows Swap File


Setting Program Default Directories:

Ideally, set default program directories to C:\Data by following these rough steps. For example, for in Microsoft Office Word:

a. Launch MSWord; Select Tools, Options, File Locations.
b. Change Documents to C:\Data\WP

For Excel:
a. Launch MSExcel, Tools, Options, General
b. Change Default File Location to C:\Data\WKSheets
c. Tools, Options, Save

For other programs, such as WordPerfect, PSP, etc., set each of their default directories similarly. If you follow this recommendation, don't forget to move the original documents from C:\Users\Documents to these new locations. There will likely be a future article with more details on this topic.


Would you like to do this again?

If this wasn't your idea of a fun weekend, how would you like to do this again? You could loose it all without an adequate backup. After "go-live," make a final full-disk image-backup, again, using the utility that came with your USB external disk. When making this backup, give it a different name so it won't overwrite your initial backup. I recommend naming this image "Golden."


Trouble in Paradise:

Although an external USB disk is a great way to store disk images, they are inherently risky. USB drives get re-formatted, re-tasked, or lost. But from what I've seen with USB backup utilities, they won't allow a backup to any device other than the USB drive. The "Golden" image deserves a permanent home on a half-dozen DVDs. This gets hard. The only real solution is to get a program designed for this. Consider Symantec's Ghost, Acronis True Image and other similar programs. I've tried a few free Linux programs with marginal success.

In any case, making a Golden DVD backup is a huge pain and even I have skipped this step – to my regret – because two months later, I was rebuilding the system again. Take my advise and make this last backup.

Related articles of interest:
Rebuilding Vista Summary
Also:
Acronis vs Ghost
Maxtor External USB
Vista Spifs
Optimizing the Windows Swap File
Stopping Vista's UAC Nag
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