Windows 2000 Pro installation tips

[msterzer]

I checked the archives for tips on installing Win 2K. Didn't come out so good. I am looking for the best method to install. I know in the past that any Win 98 installation was best done by copy the Win 98 folder to the hard drive. All the CAB files. From then on you never needed the CD. Thats what I'm looking for now with Win 2K. Hard drive space is not a problem. I don't care how much space it takes, I want the best neatest install there is. Any body that does this frequently and has great luck, please lay out your method. I'm getting rid of Win ME, [which worked flawlessly, but caught a virus], to Win 2K. It will be a clean install on a raid 0 system. AMD 1.33 T-bird, MSI KT 266 Pro Raid, 512MB PC 2100, ATI Radeon 64MB DDR VIVO, TDK 16/10/40/32 VELO CD burner, 50X Asus CD, 2 20GIG Fujitsu ATA 100 hard drives, ETC. A lot of good stuff. Whats the best way to go? Thanks for any help that any of you folks can give.

[Twinker]

Well, i've installed Win2k Pro and Server on about 1000+ machines since it's release..so i guess i'm a good reference. If what you're asking is will you need the cd for CAB files afterward, the answer is no. It copies everything necessary the 1st time around and never asks for the cd again. I hope this was what you were referring to.


good luck!

[lynchmob]

I also have wondered if you could install Win2K from the hdd.Would you just have to copy the winnt folder to c:\ ? Then type in the command from a:> "C:\winnt\setup"?
Thats what I do with w98.
lynch

[NDC]

You can copy the Win2k CDROM to your hard disk and type winnt in the i386 folder.

[msterzer]

NDC, would you explain what the i386 folder is. Sorry to sound dumb but thats me. Inquiring minds want to know.

[lynchmob]

Thanks,NDC.I forgot the winnt folder resides in i386.Forgot about the other platforms that are supported(PPC,Alpha etc).Would you copy the entire cd or just the i386 folder?
lynch

[preludexl]

i couldnt even installl office xp from the harddrive. let alone win2k. btw, i downloaded a version from the net to see if it is more stable than 98se or not,, but a buddy of mine told me not to install it or use it, that MS tracks your IP addy and what OS you are using and if the serial is legit or not if I go to their update site. so it's just sitting in my harddrive at the moment.

[This message has been edited by preludexl (edited 09-08-2001).]

[msterzer]

Guys and Gals, I need help. I bought my copy of Win2KPro from a computer store. It was a copy made to be distributed with a new PC. They assure me all is on the up and up. Had to buy some hardware at the same time. All info that came with the OS assumed it was already installed on the computer. I have a computer with a partitioned and formatted Hard drive. I used a Win 98 boot floppy to do this. From this point I can't seem to do anything with either of the CD's that came in the package. One is Win2KPro and the other is labled Step by Step interactive. I can pull up the directories of both, but when I try to access any of the files it tells me it can't be done in DOS. Please help. I've done a bunch of Win 98's and ME's and copied all the files to the Hard drive and run setup from there, but now I'm stumped. Any and all ideas much appreaciated.TIA

[NDC]

Thanks,NDC.I forgot the winnt folder resides in i386.Forgot about the other platforms that are supported(PPC,Alpha etc).Would you copy the entire cd or just the i386 folder?


Just copy the whole Win2k CDROM to the hard disk and then run winnt from i386 folder.


From this point I can't seem to do anything with either of the CD's that came in the package. One is Win2KPro and the other is labled Step by Step interactive. I can pull up the directories of both, but when I try to access any of the files it tells me it can't be done in DOS. Please help.

You need to install Windows 2000 first before you can run the "Step By Step Interactive" program. That is a Win32 program and needs to be run within Windows, not DOS which is 16bit.

I don't see why you would want to copy the Win2k CDROM to the hard disk first and then installing it instead of installing it from CDROM. As long as your BIOS has an option to boot from CDROM, I would suggest installing it from CDROM, not from the hard disk WIndows 2000 CDROM's are bootable CD's. Go into the BIOS and set the boot sequence with the CDROM as the first drive to boot from. If for some reason, you can't get Win2k installed by booting through the CDROM, you can simply use a Windows 98 boot disk and then go to the i386 folder in the Windows 2000 CDROM and type winnt to start the installation...

[sharder8]

I picked up an OEM copy of W2000Pro w/license for $1 from Goodwill the other day and when I explored it, EVERYTHING had different file extensions than the Full version I had. Needless to say, when I tried it on my daughters machine for the fun of it, it would work from the W98SE boot disk (copied I386 folder to HDD first, then tried to run winnt.exe)

I should have known better, since it was a "Compaq" OEM disk!! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

Harder

[msterzer]

NDC, you are a prince among us peons. This is the first bootable CD I ever encountered. I'll file that away in the memory banks. You came up with the answer I needed. Now if I could only get by the missing files on boot up, I'll be a happy camper. Thank you very, very much.

[NDC]

What do you mean "missing files at bootup"? Are you getting error messages?

[msterzer]

NDC, yes I got error message at bootup saying file missing. System locked up at that point. I couldn't use the repair option or even do anything at that point. I tried to format and reinstall 3 times. I finally used a different CD reader and was sucessfull. I'm using Win 2K Pro now. Thanks for all the help. Now to post a question about partitions. Thanks again.