Reviewing the Windows 2000 Setup Commands

To install Windows 2000, you must run the appropriate Windows 2000 Setup program, either Winnt.exe or Winnt32.exe. In this chapter, Winnt.exe and Winnt32.exe are both referred to as Setup. The version of Setup that you need to run is determined as follows:

• For a clean installation on a computer running MS-DOS or Microsoft® Windows® 3.x, run Winnt.exe from the MS-DOS prompt.
• For a clean installation or upgrade from Windows NT, Windows 95 or Windows 98, run Winnt32.exe.

Note that you can start a standard, interactive Setup directly from the boot floppy disks that come with the Windows 2000 Professional CD.

Caution

If you update any applications on the computer before upgrading it to Windows 2000, make sure that you restart the computer before running Setup.

For more information about installation methods, see "Automating the Installation of Windows 2000 Professional" later in this chapter.

Winnt.exe

The Winnt.exe command, including the parameters that apply to automated installation, is as follows:

winnt [/S[:sourcepath]][/T[:tempdrive]]/U[:answer_file]][/R[x]:folder] [/E:command]

For the parameter definitions, see the Appendix "Setup Commands" in this book.

For hard disk drives with multiple partitions, the Winnt.exe version of Setup installs Windows 2000 to the active partition if the partition contains sufficient space. Otherwise, Setup looks for additional partitions containing sufficient space and prompts you to choose the desired partition. For automated installations, you can bypass the prompt by running Setup with the /T parameter to automatically point to the desired partition. For example:

winnt [/unattend] [:<path>\answer.txt] [/T[:d]]

Winnt32.exe

The Winnt32.exe command, including the parameters that apply to automated installation, is as follows:

winnt32 [/s:sourcepath] [/tempdrive:drive_letter] [/unattend[num][:answer_file]] [/copydir:folder_name] [/copysource:folder_name] [/cmd:command_line] [/debug[level][:filename]] [/udf:id[,UDB_file]] [/syspart:drive_letter] [/noreboot] [/makelocalsource] [/checkupgradeonly] [/m:folder_name]

For information about the parameter definitions, see the Appendix "Setup Commands" in this book.

For hard disk drives with multiple partitions, the Winnt32.exe version of Setup installs Windows 2000 to the active partition if the partition contains sufficient space. Otherwise, Setup looks for additional partitions containing sufficient space and prompts you to choose the desired partition. For automated installations, you can bypass the prompt by running Setup with the /tempdrive parameter to automatically point to the desired partition. For example:

winnt32 [/unattend] [:<path>\answer.txt] [/tempdrive:d]

Windows 2000 can use up to eight /s switches to point to other distribution servers as source locations for installation to the destination computer. This functionality helps to speed up the file-copy phase of Setup to the destination computer, as well as providing additional load balancing capability to the distribution servers from which Setup can be run. For example:

<path to distribution folder 1>\winnt32 [/unattend] [:<path>\answer.txt] [/s:<path to distribution folder 2>] [/s:<path to distribution folder 3>] [/s:<path to distribution folder 4]

Table 25.4 shows the Setup commands and how they are used with Windows 2000.

Table 25.4 Using Setup Commands

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