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Tech Tips / Windows 2000 Professional / Installation and Configuration

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.

This issue will crop up when you use the installation diskettes, remove all partitions, create a new partition, and install Windows 2000. Setup retains the existing Boot.ini file and restores the entries in the new Boot.ini file as a precaution against accidentally deleting access to any existing operating systems, such as those in other partitions.

Since Setup has behaved this way since Windows NT 3.5, it's nothing new - and it's not likely to change. Even though you can't prevent Setup from acting this way, you can edit Boot.ini to remove old references if they're no longer needed. Simply change the attributes for the file to make it editable, open it in Notepad, delete the lines, and save the file. (Remember to restore the Hidden and System attributes after saving the file.)