Installing Windows 2000 Professional

  • Article

Windows 2000 Professional can be configured to start with multiple operating systems, such as Windows 2000, Windows NT 4.0 and earlier, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 3. x , MS-DOS, and OS/2. This is called a dual-boot or multiple-boot configuration. This section discusses configuration details for when Windows 2000 Professional resides with another operating system on the same computer.

Windows 2000 Professional can have a multiple-boot configuration with the following operating systems:

  • Windows NT Workstation 3.51 or 4.0

  • Windows 95 or Windows 98

  • Microsoft Windows 3.1 or Microsoft Windows for Workgroups version 3.11

  • MS-DOS

  • OS/2

To set up a dual- or multiple-boot configuration, you must use a separate partition for each operating system. See Disk Partition Options earlier in this chapter.

When running Windows 2000 Professional Setup, you can use Winnt32 or Autorun from the Windows 2000 Professional operating system CD to select a folder on an unused partition.

Before You Set up a Multiple-Boot Configuration

If you want to set up a dual-boot or multiple-boot configuration to make available Windows 2000 Professional and another operating system that does not support NTFS (such as MS-DOS or Windows 98) on your computer, first review the following precautions:

  • Each operating system must be installed on a separate partition. Installing Windows 2000 Professional on the same partition that contains another operating system is not supported.

  • Because youre performing a new installation of Windows 2000 Professional, you must reinstall any programs, such as word-processing or e-mail software, after setup is complete.

  • Use a FAT file system for dual-boot configurations. Although using NTFS in a dual-boot configuration is supported, it introduces additional complexity into the choice of file systems. For more information about using NTFS with a dual-boot configuration, see Setup and Startup in this book.

  • To set up a multiple-boot configuration between MS-DOS or Windows 95 and Windows 2000 Professional, install Windows 2000 Professional last. Otherwise, important files needed to start Windows 2000 Professional might be overwritten.

  • For a dual-boot configuration of Windows 2000 Professional with Windows 95 or MS-DOS, the primary partition must be formatted as FAT.

  • For a dual-boot configuration with Windows 95 OSR2 or Windows 98, the primary partition must be formatted as FAT or FAT32, not NTFS.

  • If you install Windows 2000 Professional on a computer that already has a dual-boot configuration with OS/2 and MS-DOS, Windows 2000 Professional Setup configures your system so that you can dual-boot between Windows 2000 Professional and the operating system (MS-DOS or OS/2) you most recently used before running Windows 2000 Professional Setup.

  • Dont install Windows 2000 on a compressed drive unless the drive was compressed with the NTFS file system compression tool.

  • It isnt necessary to uncompress DriveSpace or DoubleSpace volumes if you plan to use a dual-boot configuration with Windows 95 or Windows 98. However, the compressed volume wont be available while you are running Windows 2000, and the hard disk drive cannot be compressed if you are starting Setup from within Windows 95, Windows 98, or MS-DOS.

  • Windows 95 or Windows 98 might reconfigure hardware settings the first time you use them, which can cause problems if you want a multiple-boot configuration with Windows 2000 Professional.

  • If you want your programs to run on both operating systems on a dual-boot computer, you need to install them from within each operating system. You cant share programs across operating systems.

  • If the dual-boot computer is part of a Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 domain, each installation of Windows NT Workstation or Windows 2000 Professional must have a different computer name.

  • If youre using NTFS and you want a multiple-boot configuration with Windows NT Workstation, you must upgrade to Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP4 or later before continuing with the Windows 2000 Professional installation.

For more information, see Setup and Startup in this book.