installation there's nothing to look at but a mostly blank 'Installing Windows 8' screen. This part of the process took around 30-40 minutes on an i7-powered PC with a 2TB hard drive. Once you come out the other side, you'll be met with a setup wizard to help you get up and running. The first screen asks you to choose a colour for your Start page, and you are then asked to select and connect to a wireless network -- obviously one of the settings not remembered from Windows 7. As the wizard progresses there's the option to accept an 'express' default settings configuration or customise them individually yourself. The default settings include automatically installing updates, allowing apps to use your Windows account name and picture and automatically connecting to other devices on the network. The Do Not Track feature in Internet Explorer is switched on by default too. Unless you want full control over how Windows works, the express settings are safe enough to accept. If you've chosen the upgrade path I have, you'll be asked to sign in using the same admin account you had with Windows 7. If you've done a clean install, you'll need to create a new account. As you'll be aware if you've used the earlier Consumer or Release Preview versions of Windows 8, there's also the option to link your user account to a Windows ID so that services such as Outlook and SkyDrive can be synced seamlessly. This isn't compulsory and can