Unattended installation
During a normal Windows installation process, there are a number of prompts with questions you have to answer. With unattended installation, you answer all Windows question in a file called unattend.xml. Then the installation process goes from start to finish without prompting the user. Unattended installations can save a lot of time.
In-place upgrade
Some versions of Windows allow you to install a newer version of WIndows on top of the current older version. The benefit of this is that you maintain existing applications, data, and configuration.
Clean install
Some versions of Windows don’t allow an in-place upgrade, and therefore you must do a clean install. You’ll need to transfer your data elsewhere and then do a wipe and reinstall of the operation system. Then you’d use a migration tool to restore back the data that your transferred elsewhere.
Repair installation
If you are having problems with Windows and want to reinstall the operating system, you can run a repair installation. A repair installation keeps user files.
Multiboot
A multiboot installation allows the user to run two or more operating systems from a single computer. During the boot up process, the user selects which operating system they want to run.
Remote network installation
Image deployment
In an environment where you have many similar hardware and configurations, desktop administrators can create an image. This image could then be deployed and installed on many different computers simultaneously. All of the computers would have the exact same configuration.
Recovery partition
On most modern Windows systems, when you install Windows, it will automatically create a hidden recovery partition with installation files.
Refresh/restore
In Windows 8/10 there is a feature to refresh or restore the operating system. This makes use of the recovery partition to clean things up.
