Microsoft to Take the Pain Out of Installing Windows 8

I can think of few things that are less exciting than installing an OS, and the tedium is only increased when you have a handful of considerations to make. Did I back up my data? Do I need to repartition? Should I run the installer from within Windows or boot up with it? Should I do an upgrade or a full format? Just thinking about all of these questions makes my head spin.

With Windows 8, Microsoft aims to make the installation process more streamlined than ever. Via recent research conducted by the company, it was found that most users who don’t upgrade from one version of Windows to the next consider it to be too difficult, or simply too much of a hassle. With this in mind, the company has upgraded its installer with Windows 8 to such a large degree, that it managed to cut down the number of screens a typical user must deal with from 60 to 11.

Microsoft’s version of a typical user is one who uses the built-in tools in Windows to backup their data, installs their new version of Windows, and then uses the backup tool once again to restore their data. While enthusiasts or tech-heads are likely to back up data on their own and in all likelihood reformat their PC, that’s too much to expect of a casual user.

With physical media usage on the decline, Microsoft will be pushing its Web installer with Windows 8 much more than before, as the tool has been refined enough that it should be as easy as installing a regular application. Once launched, the Web installer will download the OS image in 10MB chunks and automatically verify itself as it hits the hard drive, and once complete, the tool will give you advance notice of programs that might not function correctly after the update, and will then allow you to create an installer on a USB thumb drive, or a DVD.

Keeping in mind that not everyone has a copious amount of bandwidth at their disposal, Microsoft has optimized the install media to not take up as much room as before. With a new compression scheme and the removal of duplicate packages, the current x86 edition of Windows 7 would be brought down from 2.32GB to 1.51GB. I’d call this impressive, but it goes to show how unoptimized the install media was before, due to the multitude of duplicate files (a problem even after Windows is installed).

That aside, the new installer overall, bootable or via the Web, will be easier to use and require much less steps, paving the wave for adoption by those who aren’t PC gurus. You can be sure that when Windows 8 adverts creep up, the improved installation will be heavily touted.

Even with these upgrades, I do wish Microsoft would improve the installer in other ways. Wouldn’t it be nice to have checkboxes at install to choose what Windows components you do and don’t want? Or how about having the Windows installer not being totally ignorant of Linux and overwriting its boot-loader (or failing to add an entry for it)? Going further, would it be too much to ask to have a more capable partitioner?