Anybody can swap CD's or download an OS over the internet or network. If you stop there you have the same mediocre results I see all the time. An install is not done properly unless you have the most recent drivers for each device; otherwise the devices running generic drivers will have only a subset of their full functionality available.

In addition to the driver issues, a very common occurrence is one or more chipsets on the motherboard running at less than peak performance. This is called bottlenecking and can be a driver problem, but is more likely to be devices in the data flow that have slower speeds than the host bus is capable of. Since they share the bus with other components, the chain is only as fast as the slowest component. That still doesn't convince you? Well, read on!

I have seen CPU's rated at 2 GHz running at 1 GHz. Although that's an extreme example, I promise you there are many processors out there running at less than their rated speed. Although I don't overclock processors much due to heat and durability issues I do use overclocking techniques to assure yours is clocking at it's rated speed. I like to monitor temperatures in the BIOS after a burn in of at least 24 hours to assure the machine is still well within it's safe operating envelope. What am I saying?

I'm saying a proper operating system install should assure that the total machine is functioning with all it's parts coexisting in harmony. My concept of an operating system install includes the BIOS configuration and a maximized third party device driver group. nuff said.

A proper install also assures the user has the needed software available to accomplish common tasks such as opening .pdf files, playing music and video and other features that taken together make all the difference in your personal computer experience.

Is there more to an OS install than this page addresses? Of course, but it's hard to document everything; the results I give speak for themselves.