Tech Tips

Windows 2000 Professional : Installation and Configuration

Add multiple page files to optimize virtual memory in Windows 2000

Optimizing the virtual memory of Windows 2000 Server can help you increase system performance. Virtual Memory Manager (VMM) provides applications with a virtual address instead of a physical memory address. It does this by translating the virtual address into a physical address when an application attempts to access memory....

Change Windows 2000 registration

You're probably aware that Setup brands an installation with a user name and company name when you install Windows 2000. Many applications use the same information when installed. In most cases, you probably won't need to change the registration information. If you're giving your computer to someone else in the...

Use hardware profiles for multiple system configurations

Windows 2000 is pretty good about making hardware work together, but it still hasn't overcome the problem of having too much hardware and too few hardware resources. For the want of an IRQ, some crucial piece of hardware might be completely useless to you....

Edit Boot.ini to remove old references

For those of you who have performed lots of Windows 2000 installations, you've probably been faced with this situation: All partitions from a Windows NT or Windows 2000 system have been removed, but the old Boot.ini entries still appear in the new Boot.ini file....

Setup hangs on startup

When you're installing Windows 2000, the text-mode portion of Setup might hang while displaying the message, "Setup is starting Windows 2000." This system hang can be caused by a number of things. One reason could be that you've installed a third-party mass storage device driver that isn't compatible with Windows...

Create FAT partitions at setup

When you install Windows 2000, you have the option of creating and formatting a partition. Setup gives you two options for formatting the volume: FAT or NTFS. If you select FAT, Setup doesn't give you the option of deciding whether to use the FAT16 or FAT32 file system. Instead, Setup...

Entering regional settings during Setup

If you've performed several installations of Windows 2000 that required configuration of regional settings that differed from the defaults, such as locale, number format, currency format, time and date format, and so on, you might have noticed that in some installations you can specify those settings during Setup and in...

Perform an unattended setup

While unattended setup is generally most applicable in a wide-scale deployment effort, it can be a useful tool in small networks for duplicating new systems. Unattended setup can even be useful on a single workstation. For example, you might use a workstation for beta testing or other functions that require...

Avoid reinstalling apps after a clean Windows 2000 install

You might think that performing a clean install of Windows 2000 on an existing system means you'll have to reinstall all of your applications. While it's true you'll probably have to reinstall a few, it's a good bet you can get by without a reinstall for at least some programs....

Why Setup renames accounts during an upgrade

When you run Winnt32.exe to upgrade Windows 2000 over Windows 9x, Setup checks for existing Windows 9x user accounts on the computer. If Setup detects accounts with names that match Windows 2000 reserved accounts (e.g., Guest), Setup prompts you during the reporting phase (before installation actually starts) to change the...