Installing Windows 2000
Installing Windows 2000 can be a good or even a great experience. This is especially true if you have spent any time at all around Windows 95 or Windows 98. Windows 2000 is truly intuitive in the way it handles hardware detection and installation routines. It can, however, also be what nightmares are made of if you try and merely install it without any pre-installation preparation and hardware verification.
Pre-installation Considerations
A new installation, or "clean install", on a checked and formatted hard drive seems to be the best way to install Windows 2000, especially in those instances where the original operating system, such as Windows 3.x, cannot be upgraded to Windows 2000 Professional. You should review the Advanced Setup Options as part of the process of determining how you intend to install Windows 2000.
As part of the consideration process, you should run the Windows 2000 Readiness Analyzer on your present system to determine if there are any hardware or software problems that you may be unaware of. You can learn more about the analyzer by clicking this link: Windows 2000 Readiness Analyzer
As an aside, you can upgrade from either Windows 95 or Windows 98 and you can also upgrade the Windows 2000 Beta 3 to the released version of Windows 2000 Professional.
If you need more information about upgrading from the Beta 3 version, then visit this link: Upgrading from Windows 2000 Beta 3
Upgrade vs. a New Installation
During a new installation on a freshly formatted drive, the setup process will install Windows 2000 and all of its components in new folders. When you install the operating system fresh, you place the operating system in a known state, presuming that you follow the suggestions we have provided.
That "known state" consists of the following:
You have checked your computer's hardware to insure that it is compatible with Windows 2000 along with the software you intend to install by checking the Hardware and Software Compatibility Lists provided by Microsoft.
If there is a hardware compatibility problem and you need drivers, or the motherboard's Bios needs to be replaced, this has been done. If you need more information regarding Bios issues, follow this link: Bios Issues and Windows 2000 Professional
The hard drive to be used for the installation has been partitioned (F'disked), new partitions installed and then formatted and checked for errors. If you need help with partitioning a hard drive, then follow either of these links: Partitioning for Windows 2000 or Formatting for Windows 2000.
A fresh installation will prevent you from migrating any problems that may relate to the former operating system, such as incorrect drivers, settings and incompatible files to Windows 2000.
Note: There have been several publications released that suggest that you can backup your previous operating system and installed applications such as Word, WordPerfect, Excel etcetera, install Windows 2000 and then restore those applications. This is simply not true!
You can backup your data files such as Word and WordPerfect documents, Excel spread sheets etcetera and then restore those, but the applications themselves must be reinstalled (presuming that they are compatible) and then the various documents, spreadsheets, pictures etcetera recovered.
As a rule of thumb, you should try and do a clean format and installation of Windows 2000 if any of the following are true:
Your computer is new and your hard drive is blank with no operating system installed on it.
Your current operating system is Windows 3.X, which does not support an upgrade to Windows 2000.
Your present operating system has any type of problems that may be related to drivers and/or settings or has a substantial number of orphan files from program removals or un-installations.
You have two partitions and would like to create a dual-boot configuration with Windows 2000 and your current operating system, such as Windows 95 or Windows 98. Windows 2000 must be installed on a different partition than your present operating system!
During an upgrade, setup will replace your existing Windows files but it will also preserve your existing settings and applications. This, however, can also lead to many other problems. Some Windows 9x applications will not be compatible with Windows 2000 and may not function properly in the Windows 2000 environment after an upgrade, and in the end, forcing you to do a clean installation. Some of these applications have special Windows 2000 files that are not installed when installing the application on a Windows 9x system.
Remember, just because it boots into Windows 2000 doesn't mean that everything is working as it should. You may not find out until much later that the upgrade had not gone as you had intended, and you might discover this at a most inopportune moment. Microsoft has posted a list of software applications that have been tested on the Windows 2000 platform and found to be compatible.
You can find out more about those applications that are compatible by visiting this link: Search for Compatible Software Applications.
You should upgrade only if any one of the following are true:
You are using a previous version of Windows that supports upgrading and you have verified that your current drivers and settings are compatible with Windows 2000; and
You want to replace your existing operating system with Windows 2000 to gain some of its additional features that you do not now have; and
There is an emergent need to retain your existing settings and file preferences such as for special applications and you have the necessary patches etcetera to insure compatibility.
If you choose to do an upgrade, as opposed to a clean installation, then visit the following pages.
Upgrading from Windows 95/98
Upgrading from Windows NT 4 Workstation