This step-by-step guide demonstrates how to install Windows 7 Ultimate. The guide is similar for other versions of Windows 7 such as Home Premium. Follow this guide and you can install your own copy of Windows within minutes.

The best way to install Windows 7 is to do a clean install. It is quite easy to do a clean install of Windows. Also it is necessary that you have all the drivers that new Windows will support. Make sure that. Make sure that all your drivers are saved in an external drive. If you don’t have Windows 7 drivers for all your hardware, it is a good idea to download all the drivers from the PC manufacturer’s website and save all the necessary drivers on a CD-R or a USB drive before you start the installation.

Note that a clean install of Windows 7 will format your hard drives. Hence you should save all your important data in an external hard-disk or a pen drive.

Windows 7 DVD is bootable. In order to boot from the DVD you need to set the boot sequence. Look for the boot sequence under your BIOS setup and make sure that the first boot device is set to CD-ROM/DVD-ROM.

Stepwise Process to Install Windows 7.

Step 1 – Place Windows 7 DVD in your dvd-rom drive and start/boot your PC. Windows 7 will start to boot up and you will get the following progress bar.

Step 2 – Now Windows will prompt you to choose your language, time and currency format, keyboard or input method. Choose your required settings and click next to continue.

Step 3 – Windows will ask you to either install Windows 7 or repair it. Since we are doing a clean install we will click on “install now”. 

Step 4 -Next screen will prompt to read the license terms and agreements. Tick I accept license terms. Then click next to continue.

Step 5 – Now you will be presented with two options. Upgrade or Custom (Advanced). Since we are doing a clean install we will select Custom (Advanced).  

Step 6 – Choose where to install Windows 7 on your drive. If you have one hard drive you will get a similar option to the image below. You can now click next to continue. If you have more that one drive or partition then you need to select a particular drive and click next. Windows will take around 15-220 GB of your drive space. Hence you can choose any drive having disk space of around 50 GB. If you need to format or partition a drive then click Drive options (advance) before clicking next.

Step 7 – Windows 7 will now start the installation process. It will start copying all the necessary files to your hard drive as shown on the image below. Wait for a few minutes till this process ends. It will take around 15-30 minutes based on your PC’s performance.

Step 8 – Windows Install will go through various stages of the setup and will reboot your system few times. Patience is the key, hence wait for some times. 

Step 9 – When your PC reboots it attempts to boot from DVD as it’s the first boot device. Do not press any key during the boot prompt so Windows 7 will continue with the installation by booting from the hard drive. You can also remove the Windows DVD if you want.

Step 10 – After the reboot Windows will start to prepare your computer for first use. Here it will change different registry settings.

Step 11 – At this stage you need to choose a username and computer name. Click next to continue. The user account you create here is the Administrator account which is the main account for your Windows 7 that has all the privileges. You can change the password and username later on control panel.

Step 12 – Choose your password and password hint just incase you forget your password and need to jog your memory.

Step 13 – You can now type the product key that came with Windows 7 and click next. If you do not enter the product key you can still proceed to the next stage. However Windows 7 will run in trial mode for 30 days. You must therefore activate Windows within 30 days otherwise you can not access your computer after 30 days.

Step 14 – Help protect your computer and improve Windows automatically. Choose Use recommended settings.

Step 15 – Review your time and date settings. Select your time zone, correct the date and time and click next to continue.

Step 16 – Select your computer’s current location. If you are a home user then choose Home network otherwise select the appropriate option.

Step 17 – Windows will now finalize the settings for your computer and restart.

Step 18 – After the final restart Windows 7 will start to boot up.

Step 19 – Finally you have the logon screen. Just type your password and press enter or click on the arrow to logon to Windows 7 for the first time.

Step 20 – After you have logged on to Windows 7 for the first time, you will see similar desktop to the image below. At this point you can start using your computer. However it may not be fully configured. You need to make sure that all the hardware is detected correctly and the necessary device drivers are installed. This can be done from the device manager.

Step 21 – To go to device manager click – Start Menu -> Control Panel -> System and Security -> System -> Device Manager. You will see all your hardware listed as shown on the image below. You need to check if you have any yellow exclamation marks next to the name of the devices, similar to “Multimedia Audio Controller” on the image below. This indicates that the driver has not been installed for this device.

At this stage you can install the driver for this device. To do so, Right Mouse click on Multimedia Audio Controller -> Update Driver Software…

Step 22 – You can choose to “Search automatically for updated driver software” or “Browse my computer for driver software”. If you have the driver CD or if the driver is on a USB drive then choose “browse my computer for driver software”. Window 7 will search and install the driver from the CD or you can locate the driver manually.

Once you have removed all the yellow exclamation marks from the device manager your Windows 7 configuration would be fully complete.

Step 23 – Finally check if you have successfully activated Windows 7. Click Start Menu -> Control Panel -> System and Security -> System. You will get a window similar to the image below. Towards the bottom you will see Windows is activated followed by your product ID. This shows that your copy of Windows 7 is fully activated.

Still facing problems, comment below