Windows 2000 is beloved for its very reasonable system requirements.
cd on cd image by Stephen Kirkby from Fotolia.com
The mild system requirements to run Windows 2000 Professional make it a popular operating system to run on older computers that do not have the power necessary to run more recent operating systems such as Windows XP. However, if you purchased your computer with Windows 2000 Professional pre-installed, you may not be familiar with performing a clean installation of the operating system. Install Windows 2000 Professional on a new hard drive using the operating system's built-in disk partitioning and formatting utilities.
Step 1
Start the computer with the Windows 2000 Professional CD inserted. Some computers will boot from the CD automatically. Others require a key such as "Esc" to be pressed to boot from a source other than the hard drive. If neither of these applies, look for a key that must be pressed to enter the setup utility for your motherboard. In the setup utility, find an area called "boot order" or "boot priority" and change it so that the CD or DVD drive appears first on the list.
Step 2
Press the "F6" key when prompted if your new hard drive is a SATA or SCSI drive. These types of hard drives connect to controllers that require drivers not included with Windows 2000, and they must be supplied on a floppy disk when Windows is being installed. Insert the driver disk when prompted to install the drivers and allow the hard drive to be seen by the Windows 2000 Professional installation utility.
Step 3
Select the hard drive that you want to install Windows 2000 Professional on by highlighting it with the keyboard. If the hard drive has never been used, it will be labeled "Unpartitioned Space." Press the "C" key to create a partition.
Step 4
Type the amount of space in megabytes that you would like to devote to the new hard drive partition. By default, the maximum allowable space is entered. Press "Enter." You are returned to the hard drive selection screen with the formerly unallocated drive now labeled "Unformatted."
Step 5
Highlight the unformatted space with the arrow keys and press "Enter."
Step 6
Select the NTFS or FAT32 file system for formatting the hard drive. If you do not know which file system to use, select NTFS, which is used by every consumer Windows operating system since Windows 2000. Press "Enter." Windows formats the hard drive partition, and the computer restarts. The installation process begins.
Step 7
Click the "Customize" button to change either the location of your computer or the keyboard layout. By default, Windows 2000 Professional selects the appropriate options for the location where the software was purchased. Click "Next."
Step 8
Enter your name, and if Windows 2000 Professional is being installed on a business computer, the name of the business. Click "Next."
Step 9
Type the word or phrase that you would like to use as the Administrator password for the computer. Make sure that you select something you will not forget, or write it down and keep it in a safe place. Click "Next."
Step 10
Select your time zone and enter the current date and time. Click "Next."
Step 11
Enter the name of the Windows Server domain that you would like the computer to join. If the computer will not be used on a Windows Server domain, enter a workgroup name and click "Next." After all files have been installed, the computer restarts. Windows 2000 Professional is ready to use.
Tip
- If you are installing Windows 2000 on a computer that is unable to boot from the CD or DVD drive, a floppy disk version of the Windows 2000 setup utility is required. Place the Windows 2000 installation CD in a working computer with a floppy drive, then use the "makeboot" utility in the "bootdisk" folder on the CD. Alternatively, download the Windows 2000 setup floppy utility from BootDisk.com using the link in the Resource section of this article.
Photo Credits
- cd on cd image by Stephen Kirkby from Fotolia.com
