Supporting Windows
Objectives
- Perform Operating System (OS) installations and upgrades.
- Install and confgiure applications.
- Troubleshoot Windows Operating System (OS) problems.
Summary
Being able to install or upgrade an operating system can be important if you have built a custom computer system from scratch, if the system you purchased from a vendor did not have the correct system installed, or if you are completely redeploying existing hardware from one system to another. The skills and information in this topic will help you plan and perform an OS installation properly, for whatever your technical and business requirements might be.
Guidelines for Supporting Windows
- Develop a checklist and work instructions to govern deployment of lcean install of new operating systems:
- Boot methods for attended (USB external drive versus optical media) and unattended (USB/disk versus remote network installation)
- Partitioning (Master Boot Record (MBR) versus Global Partition Table (GPT) and file system requirements for drive formatting or inline-based installation.
- Develop a checklist and work instructions to govern deployment of in-place upgrades:
- Availability and product life cycle, including feature updates
- Considerations (backup files and user preferences, app and driver support/backward compatibility, and hardware compatibility).
- Prepare for recovery scenarios by creating boot media/internal partitions, backup images, and backup user files/preferences.
- Develop a checklist and work instructions to govern deployment of new applications:
- Establish system requirements for applications (CPU, 32-bit vs. 64-bit, RAM, dedicated graphics card vs integrated, VRAM, storage, and external hardware tokens).
- Establish application to Operating System (OS) compatibility
- Assess impacts to business, operation, network, and device.
- Develop a knowledge base to document steps to resolve Windows OS Issues:
- Systems including BSoD, sluggish Performance, boot problems, frequire shutdowns, services not starting, applications crashing, low memory warnings, USB controller resources warning, system instability, no OS found, slow profile load, and time drift.
- tools and techniques including reboot, restart services, uninstall/reinstall/update applications, add resources, verify requirements, sfc, repair Windows, restore, re-image, roll back updates, and rebuild windows profiles.