Fresh install...

With all the playing around with the ATI Catalyst Drivers and the swap between Windows XP and Windows Vista, I was not sure whether it was wise to continue with the system software setup as it was currently. So, I decided to restart from scratch with a fresh installation of Windows Vista Business 32. I removed the previous system partition and created a new partition of the same size (20 GBytes). The installation of Vista is currently taking place. I will try to track all the steps I take, to keep a good logging of the installation process.

After the installation was completed, the first thing I did was to install the driver for the WLAN (Wireless Network). I used the installation CD supplied with the Belkin USB dongle I have. I hate those vendor supplied WLAN Utilities, so I removed the utility after installation and only kept the drivers for the USB dongle, havind Vista managing my network connections. Next thing was to connect to my home wireless network, which of course is secured by a network key. After supplying the system with the key, I left the system alone, because I had a meeting with friends scheduled.

While being left alone, Windows Update installed 51 updates, and 1 update failure. The system was waiting for a reboot, which I just did.

Next step is downloading motherboard drivers from the gigabyte site. I have downloaded the following drivers:

1. Realtek Function driver for Realtek Azalia audio chip (Including Microsoft UAA/HDMI Driver in English edition), Version R1.67
2. AMD Chipset Driver (include chipset\sata raid\vga driver), Version 8.452rc2
3. Realtek LAN Driver, Version 6.202.0125.2008
4. AMD RAID Driver, Version 3.1.1540.25

After unpacking these packages by running the executable files, the installation can start. By the way, Vista keeps on asking if the packages installed correctly or not, seems to be a symptom of the RAR expander, and can be ignored.

Installing items 1, 2, and 4 have to be followed by a reboot after each installation. I just launched the setup files in each package, without making any changes to the - whenever applicable - settings. Item 3 did not require a reboot, but I rebooted anyway

The get the graphics up to speed and get a proper resolution I installed the ATI Catalyst 8.3 drivers, after downloading from the ATI website. The installation needs some tweaking. First of all I do not need the Earthsim applications, so I deselected that one. Another thing you should be aware of is that ATI by default install Free Games stuff, which of course I do not need on my Media Portal machine. To disable the installation of the stuff I need to select Custom Install and uncheck the options as shown in the next picture:

Of course the system has o be rebooted after the installation. After the reboot I was able to set the resolution to my LCD screen currently attached to the system, which provided me with a bigger working area.

Next step was the installation of the FireDTV driver, by, after downloading it from the Digital Everywhere website, launching the setup. One important step in the installation is the selection of the driver I will need:

As I am going to run Media Portal, I need to install the BDA drivers.

Only one driver installation left, which is the remote control/LCD screen driver. The driver can be downloaded from the SoundGraph website. I decided to use the latest beta version of the driver 7.01.0204 2nd Beta, which according to several postings is stable. By the way, during the installation, I deselected the iMedian HD part of the installation, as I am not going to need that one.

As Device Manager shows now, all the necessary drivers have been installed. I went to the Windows Update site to assure that all the necessary updates were installed on the system, and of course, new updates were available, so I installed all available updates.

Before creating an image of the current installation, I had to change the workgroup, as the windows default workgroup is named "Workgroup", and that is not the one I am using on my home network. Changing the workgroup is an easy task, by clicking "change settings" in the System part of the control panel:

My home network is connected to a Windows Home Server machine, which is taking care of all the backups of my home PC's. To enable this backup facility the Home Server Connector software had to be installed from the Home Server. After completing this, I created an image of the system partition of my HTPC (meaning backup the C-drive).

By the way, by default Windows Vista puts your machine to sleep after one hour. For the time being I don't want this to happen, so in the Power Options I changed the option Sleep after 1 hour, into Sleep Never.

Not sure how quickly the remaining installation will continue, as I have to go on a business trip the coming week.