How to Install Windows 7 - Discussion

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I found a problem with broken images in the article which appeared when switching the thread username over - this should now be fixed . Sorry about that!

Ian, I realise there are other threads about customisation etc but was wondering if following "How to Install" discussion you might go into something along the lines "the first things you want to do after installation".
Basic tweaks/settings sort of stuff, the things a new user going to Win 7 might be wondering about. All the simple settings a new user would might first want to do just to get all the basics happening.

I did make a thread/post, on my own methods, Mychael, but it did not get much attention?
Simple customisation of 7

Not sure I ever noticed before Dave. I see it's a .rar file. What do I use to open that?
my windows (XP) does not seem to know.

Worked it out. Printing it now.

7-zip can't create rar files but it can open them. They are created with winrar but it is not free, just a 30-day evaluation.

Found a free program called RAR file open knife. It did the trick.
What are the benefits of a .rar file? What was it's design intenion?

Rar files are the same as zip files for the most part.

Just a different format and perhaps compression is slightly greater. The "scene" uses rars to distribute games, music, software etc...

That's because if the downloads are huge, it can be broken into multiple parts using rars. If one file is downloaded corrupt, all that needs to be done is to download that tiny part again, instead of the whole thing.

I don't have a dedicated "zip" program on my computer at the moment. I use "Winrar", which does zips, rars and a few others. But I seem to recall that all you had to do was change the handle from rar to zip and it worked anyway?

Nah, no need to change the extension. Winrar can open zips or rars (or many other types) by default.

You can customize when you install or if installed already, in the program, Options | Settings | Integration

Associate the program with whatever ya want.