Installing Win 2000: A rude awakening

[Howard Kaikow]

In another thread, I point out that I've not had success upgrading Win 98 to
Win 2000 on a system that already was triple boot, but that's a subject for
the other thread. In the process of doing this, I managed to get as far as
the win 2000 install creating an Upgrade Report.

Currently, Win 98 is on C, Win 2000 is on F, created as clean install, and
Win 2000 is on G, cloned from Win 2000 on F..

Most of the problems it reports fall into the following categories:

1. I have to replace certain of the Win 98 programs/drivers with Win 2000
equivalents, which I already have in Win 2000 on F and/or G.
2. Drivers will need to be installed for certain devices not
installed/available under Win 98, e.g., an NTFS USB hard drive, but are
installed in Win 2000 on F and G.
3. Report complains about some things installed in Win 2000 on F or G,
likely because Win 98 does not know what they are.

It is clear that the Win 2000 install is not designed for systems that are
already multiple boot. It would nice if we could have an option to make it
so.

All of the above is likely not a problem, since Win 2000 is already running
on the hardware, however, I am concerned about the "Backup Files found"
category which, in part, states:

"Setup found files on your computer that appear to be a backup of part of
Windows 98. During the upgrade to Windows 2000, Setup removes Windows 98
from your computer, including any backups you may have on your hard disk."

The Setupact.log file lists the affected directories, but does not specify
the files.

In this case, many of those file are in a cloned Win 98 directory, so
removal would break the clone. I could live with that, as I do intend to
eventually retire win 98.

In other cases, the files are in the Program Files directories for Win 2000
on F and G, nothing at all to do with Win 98 on C, of course, the install
cannot know that, but it could ask, n'est-ce pas?. I sure don't want those
files to be automagically deleted, it doesn't seem to make sense to do so.

The last large category of such critters are files that were distributed
with books such as the VBA Developers Handbook. Win 2000 has no business
deleting such files. Again the install should ask.

Are these problems avoided by doing a clean install?
I sure hope so.

Back in June 2000, when I first installed win 2000, the upgrade report
listed only a few files that were distributed with books.
I guess that I did not notice this problem back then, so I do not know
whether any files were deleted when I installed Win 2000 on F as a clean
install. Win 2000 was installed on G by cloning from the Win 2000 on F, a
painful process that I do not really wish to go thru again,

Is cloning the only way to protect files from being needlessly deleted?

I sure wish there was a way to upgrade Win 98 on a multiboot system, and not
needlessly delete files that the install has no business looking at.

 

[Jim Boyce]

Hi, Howard. I'll expand here on the email I sent you previously in case
others are facing the same issue.

If you are using the Upgrade CD, I seem to recall (not sure) that only the
Full version would install on a system that already had Windows 2000
installed. My previous suggestion to either disconnect the F and G drives or
hide their partitions would seem to be the only route to take here.
Naturally, you'll want to copy any driver source files to drive C first.

Jim

 

[Howard Kaikow]

Hi, Howard. I'll expand here on the email I sent you previously in case
others are facing the same issue.

If you are using the Upgrade CD, I seem to recall (not sure) that only the
Full version would install on a system that already had Windows 2000
installed. My previous suggestion to either disconnect the F and G drives or
hide their partitions would seem to be the only route to take here.
Naturally, you'll want to copy any driver source files to drive C first.

Thanx for the email and this response.

I can test this hypothesis by booting from the Win 2000 CD and seeing
whether it will let me install another Win 2000 on, say, the J drive,
something I need to do anyway.

But for upgrading Win 98, I likely do need to change boot.ini to refer to
only Win 98 and to disable/uninstall the driive that has F and G, miight as
well also do sme for drive that has I-M. Win 2000 DEvice Manager has options
to do that, but I have not yet checked in Win 98's Device Manager.

 

[Howard Kaikow]

I unplugged the drive that has the IF and GO partitions and I removed those
partitions from boot.ini.
I was then able to install Win 2000 over Win 98 on C.

Of course, I now have to uninstall/re-install some apps.
And, I had trouble installing the Lexmark print drivers, but I managed to
get it done.

An upgrade does leave a lot of vestigial crap around and, much to my
surprise, IE 6 was uninstalled and replaced by IE 6, so there's lots of
stuff to check out.

I guess first thing is to update auntie virus stuff so I can more safely go
on internet to download, e.g., Win 2000 SP 4 and IE 6.

I guess that I can delete the clone of Win 98 I created, since I dare not
share the Program Files directory with Win 98.

What can I do with the C:\MSDOS7 directory?
msdos.sys was changed to refer to C:\msdos7.
Should I keep that?