Installing Windows 2000

Currently, I'm running Windows 98 (as I'm sure most of you know.) Anyway, my mother just got Windows 2000 for me, and I'm going to install it this weekend. Is there anything I should know? Do I need to uninstall Windows 98 first? (Is this possible? images/icons/smile.gif) Will I need to backup all of my data? I'm assuming Installing Windows 2000 is simple, but still...I won't be able to go a few days without a computer.

Well, I started from a clean hard drive after freshly formatting, so I'm not exactly sure, but I think you can upgrade... I went from 2000 to XP very smoothly. I started my computer after the install and everything was just how I left it, but XPified. I can't say for sure, but I think it's probably the same way with 98->2000. I wouldn't act on what I say, because I don't know for sure.

Window 2000 is pretty stable and the installer is almost fool proof. If I could I would Win2K as a completely fresh installation. It will be that little bit faster and more efficient. However, it is quite cabable of upgrading a copy of Win98.

The other thing I'd recommend can be slightly pricey depending on your hardware. Basically, if you have any ISA devices then I would replace them with PCI or AGP. Win2K's device management is completely crippled by ISA devices (it has to revert to a slower mode) so I'd only use ISA if you absolutely have to. The annoying thing is that it won't fix itself if the ISA device is removed, you effectively have to re-install to get the faster device access.

As for data backup, if you can then do it. Win2K is very good but it never hurts to be careful. to put it in perspective, I have run Win2K nonstop for about 8 months and it was 10 months before that. The only reason I had to restart was to install a new soundcard!

You may or may not know this but if you ever do any subclassing then Win2K is a blessing. Getting subclassing wrong on 98 can crash Windows. Not so in 2K, the VB process just quits and you can restart it. Its so much easier.

Cool, this is encouraging! Heh, I don't do a whole lot of subclassing, but who knows? Maybe I will, maybe I will...Anyway, I don't think I have any ASI devices.

So, after I back up all of my data, should I just boot into DOS mode and deltree /y C:\*.*? Or can I install it by just putting the Windows 2000 CD in?

it should probably work just fine...cause i went from 98 to XP without any problems at all...so it should be alright

Spike
<font color=red>As I close my eyes, I feel it all slipping away!</font color=red>
Slipknot-Left Behind

I would use Format C: not Deltree. I don't even know if deltree will allow you to delete some files (dependencies, shared files, etc.) but then again, I haven't been heavily into DOS in a long time...

You can delete everything from DOS because there are NO dependancies. Command.com is loaded entirely in memory so you even delete that! You will need to de-attrib everything first to get the readonly, system and hidden files. However, I wouldn't format the drive. When you run Win2K setup it will ask which partition to install on. At this point you can delete the existing partition and create a new one. The other advantage of doing it this way is that you can create the new partition as NTFS. This is both faster and more efficient plus it allows encryption.

When I formatted my drive and tried to install Windows 2000 I realized that you need 4 completely error free floppy disks to boot off of.
You may not need them (depending on your setup) but I'd have them lying around just in case.

Good Luck
-cl

That's odd. I've done many Win2K installs and have never been asked for that. If you ever find out under what circumstances this is required then I'd be interested in knowing.

Got it working and I love it! Installation went without a hitch! Thanks guys