Chapter 6. Setup and Hardware

Installing and setting up an operating system is akin to dental surgery (without anesthesia), sitting in traffic on a hot day (without A/C), or cleaning the cat litter box (without—never mind). Surprisingly, and to Microsoft's credit, Windows XP's installation and hardware detection procedures are a lot better than those of previous versions of Windows. However, they're a long way from being effortless.

Hassling with Microsoft's registration system, dealing with restore CDs, sorting out drivers, and worse are still unenviable tasks, but once you know how to deal with these annoyances you can make Windows run more smoothly…at least, until the next version of the operating system comes out!