In the last lesson you learned how an operating system boots up. It's an important concept to understand since you'll be faced with troubleshooting boot up issues in IT support. Now we're going to walk through the steps to select and install an operating system. We're going to focus on operating systems in the IT space. First, we'll talk about deciding which operating system to install in a business setting. Second, we'll dive into the overall process of installing an operating system. So how do you decide which operating system to install? Well, you need to ask yourself a couple of questions. Has the decision already been made? The operating systems in use by an organization have a lot to do with the applications and systems that they need to run. Are you working with an organization or service that requires the use of a specific operating system? If so, you're done that's easy. If the decision hasn't been made on what OS to use, or if you're looking for an operating system for personal use, then you need to ask yourself, what software will need to be run on this device. In lots of cases, the software will be designed to run on a specific operating system. It's also possible that the software is cross platform, meaning it can run on more than one operating system. Another question to ask is, what hardware will be used? Modern operating systems do a pretty good job of supporting common hardware. You should keep in mind that some manufacturers allow their opperating system to be only installed on their hardware. Still a little confused about which operating system is best for you or your organization? Check out the supplemental reading right after this video to learn more. There's one more thing I should call out. Remember that we have different CPU architecture's, 32-bit and 64-bit. Our operating systems will also be optimized for this architecture, so make sure that the CPU and OS are compatible. If you have a 64-bit CPU, you should also install the 64-bit version of the operating system you choose. Okay, now that you've chosen an operating system that you want to use, let's work on getting it installed on our hardware. Many computers come with an operating system pre-installed. If you boot the computer in this condition, the operating system will continue from whatever point the vendor left it at. You'll need to do a couple of things to finish the installation, like choosing a computer name, or host name, or configuring the network for the device. There's more, but we won't worry about that now. When we walk through an installation of an operating system, you'll be able to see this. If you're going to be installing an operating system from scratch, you can use different installation media. Some operating system manufacturers sell their operating system in disc form or USB form. Some let you do reinstalls directly over the internet. As an IT support specialist, you'll install an operating system many times, so using one single disk won't be time efficient or scalable. Scalability is an important concept that we'll cover later. If you want to scale or accommodate multiple computers, the added support is something you need to keep in mind. For now, you're only working with one computer so let's focus on that. Let's just use a USB drive to install your operating system. Some OS manufacturers have their own special USB drives with the installation image like Windows. For Linux we can load up an OS onto any USB drives. You'll see what I mean by that in the next couple of videos. See you there.