MCSE Window®s 2000 Professional Exam Cram™ 2 (Exam 70-210) [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Performing Attended Installations of Windows 2000 Professional

An attended installation of Windows 2000 Professional requires that someone sit in front of the target computer and answer all the installation prompts, such as the end user license agreement (EULA) prompt. Before you start the installation process, you need to ensure that the computer meets the minimum hardware requirements for Windows 2000 Professional. Unlike Windows NT, Windows 2000 supports only Intel-based computers. The following are the minimum hardware requirements for installing Windows 2000 Professional:

133MHz Pentium or higher central processing unit (CPU)

32MB of memory (Microsoft recommends 64MB)

A 2GB hard drive with a minimum of 650MB of free space

VGA, or higher-resolution, monitor

Keyboard

Mouse

10X CD-ROM for CD-ROM installations

After you've verified that the computer meets these minimum hardware requirements, you should check to see if devices such as the video adapter and the network adapter are compatible. To do this, you check Microsoft's Hardware Compatibility List (HCL), which every Windows 2000 CD-ROM contains. However, that file is out of date. To view the most current HCL, you can visit www.microsoft.com/hcl.

You can perform an attended install of Windows 2000 in three ways: by using a CD-ROM, by using the setup disks, or by using the network.

CD-ROM Installation

One of the easiest methods for installing Windows 2000 Professional is to put the Windows 2000 Professional CD-ROM in the computer and boot the computer. The computer boots from the CD-ROM, starts the first phase of the installation, and copies the installation files to the local hard drive. Then the computer reboots (remember to remove the CD-ROM) and starts the graphical user interface (GUI) phase of the installation. You can install Windows 2000 Professional in this fashion if your computer's basic input/output system (BIOS) supports the option to boot from a CD-ROM drive and the CD-ROM is El-Torito compatible.

Setup Disks Installation

If you can't configure a computer to boot from a CD-ROM, you can install Windows 2000 Professional by using the four floppy setup disks that come with the Windows 2000 Professional CD-ROM. To do so, you simply place Setup Disk 1 in the computer to start the installation.

If the four setup disks are lost or become corrupted, you can create them by using the Windows 2000 Professional CD-ROM. To do so, you open the Bootdisk folder on the CD-ROM and execute either makeboot.exe or makebt32.exe. A command prompt window opens, asking you to insert a floppy disk into drive A:. You should continue the process until you have created all four disks. You should use makeboot.exe if you are running in a DOS environment or in Windows for Workgroup. You should use makebt32.exe if you are running in Windows 95, 98, NT, or 2000. This method of creating a boot disk replaces the Windows NT 4 method of executing the winnt32.exe /ox switch, which does not create Windows 2000 setup disks.

Network Installation

You can place the contents of the Windows 2000 Professional CD-ROM in a folder on a network server and then share the folder. This network server is referred to as a distribution server. You need to establish a network connection to the distribution server in order to start the installation. If Windows 9x or NT is on the target computer, you should connect to the share point and execute winnt32.exe to start the installation process. If no operating system is on the target computer, you should use a network boot disk to connect to the source files. You use winnt.exe to start the installation in a 16-bit/DOS environment, and you use winnt32.exe in a 32-bit environment.