The user inserts the installation media, initiates the process, and Setup loads various hardware and file-system drivers.The setup process introduced with Windows NT 3.1 remained in effect until the release of Windows Vista. įurther information: Booting process of Windows NT Setup before Vista After the installation, Windows was to be started either manually by typing 'WIN.COM' at the command prompt, or configured for automatic startup by adding WIN.COM to the end of AUTOEXEC.BAT. The installer attempts to detect network cards, mice, and other hardware on its own but will rely on the user to specify hardware if it cannot find them.

The installation of Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1x and Windows 3.2 requires that a compatible DOS operating system is already installed. After the installation, Windows was to be started either manually by typing ' WIN.COM' at the command prompt, or configured for automatic startup by adding WIN.COM to the end of AUTOEXEC.BAT. The user must specify any hardware such as mice or printers during installation. The installation of Windows 1.x, Windows 2.0, Windows 2.1x requires that a compatible version of MS-DOS is installed. With the release of Windows NT 6.0 ( Vista), Microsoft introduced a fully graphical setup environment and UEFI support (partial in Windows Vista and 7, full UEFI support on Windows 8 onwards). Additionally, it did not need preinstalled DOS as a requirement. The 9x family installer was similar to NT despite it being MS-DOS-based.

The Windows NT family, from 3.1 through 6.0 featured text-based installation that prompted users to a GUI wizard in the final steps.

The early versions of Windows required an existing compatible version of DOS operating system in order to be installed. Windows Setup is an installer that prepares a hard disk drive for a Microsoft Windows operating system installation by executing two processes: a) initializing the drive and b) copying system files to that drive in order for the operating system to be run locally (see Volume). Expanding files during installation in Windows 11

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