Windows 2000 Setup Disks Without Microsoft CD?

[Alan Boritz]

I was helping a friend with some boot difficulties on a new Toshiba notebook
computer and we needed a set of Windows 2000 boot disks to diagnose it further.
He bought his Windows 2000 system installed (contents of the CD on the hard disk
from the factory). The only CD's he got with the machine were recovery CD's,
which only partition and format the hard disk before installing the factory
image (not a regular Microsoft program CD). I checked one of my Sony Vaio
notebooks which also had Windows 2000 pre-installed and it looks like I've got
the same situation.

Is there a copywrite-friendly procedure to download Windows 2000 boot disks for
systems that have paid-up licenses? Also, is there a copywrite-friendly
procedure to obtain Windows 2000 installation CD's without a new license key, so
owners of computers with similarly installed Windows 2000 images can access all
of the advertised and documented features available to "upgrade" customers?
Thanks.

 

[GHalleck]

I was helping a friend with some boot difficulties on a new Toshiba notebook
computer and we needed a set of Windows 2000 boot disks to diagnose it further.
He bought his Windows 2000 system installed (contents of the CD on the hard disk
from the factory). The only CD's he got with the machine were recovery CD's,
which only partition and format the hard disk before installing the factory
image (not a regular Microsoft program CD). I checked one of my Sony Vaio
notebooks which also had Windows 2000 pre-installed and it looks like I've got
the same situation.

Is there a copywrite-friendly procedure to download Windows 2000 boot disks for
systems that have paid-up licenses? Also, is there a copywrite-friendly
procedure to obtain Windows 2000 installation CD's without a new license key, so
owners of computers with similarly installed Windows 2000 images can access all
of the advertised and documented features available to "upgrade" customers?
Thanks.

No such option exists. To minimize the cost of the license that OEM's pass
on to their customers, Microsoft allowed the option of an OEM brand specific
recovery cdrom. There is a more general OEM product cdrom that is sold with
new systems and certain hardware. (And there is the retail product.) Besides,
licensing requires the user to obtain upgrades from the OEM or "on their own".
But if one wants to generate a copy of the system in its current setup, use a third-
party imaging application such as Symantec Ghost, PowerQuest DriveImage,
Arconis TrueImage, etc., to generate an user-specific recovery cdrom. HTH.

 

[Steve Parry [MVP]]

I was helping a friend with some boot difficulties on a new Toshiba
notebook computer and we needed a set of Windows 2000 boot disks to
diagnose it further. He bought his Windows 2000 system installed
(contents of the CD on the hard disk from the factory). The only CD's
he got with the machine were recovery CD's, which only partition and
format the hard disk before installing the factory image (not a
regular Microsoft program CD). I checked one of my Sony Vaio
notebooks which also had Windows 2000 pre-installed and it looks like
I've got the same situation.

Is there a copywrite-friendly procedure to download Windows 2000 boot
disks for systems that have paid-up licenses? Also, is there a
copywrite-friendly procedure to obtain Windows 2000 installation CD's
without a new license key, so owners of computers with similarly
installed Windows 2000 images can access all of the advertised and
documented features available to "upgrade" customers? Thanks.

that's how a lot of OEM systems operate.

For boot disks though try http://www.bootdisk.com

 

[Alan Boritz]

No such option exists. To minimize the cost of the license that OEM's pass
on to their customers, Microsoft allowed the option of an OEM brand specific
recovery cdrom. There is a more general OEM product cdrom that is sold with
new systems and certain hardware. (And there is the retail product.) Besides,
licensing requires the user to obtain upgrades from the OEM or "on their own".
But if one wants to generate a copy of the system in its current setup, use a third-
party imaging application such as Symantec Ghost, PowerQuest DriveImage,
Arconis TrueImage, etc., to generate an user-specific recovery cdrom. HTH.

I'm not interested in what Microsoft "allowed." I bought a fully functional
operating system, and now it appears that it is NOT fully functional. Ghost,
DriveImage, or similar products are useless to diagnose a non-booting system. At
one time computer manufacturers offered an extra set of Microsoft program disks
(without a separate license key) at an incremental cost, specifically for the
purpose of diagnosing and repairing the operating system. Sony appears to have
side-stepped that process by giving wrong information to their customers (they
copied the Windows 98 instructions, which are wrong), yet the help system
contained within my Sony systems is telling me to go back to the Windows 2000 CD
(which Sony won't provide) to make the setup disk set.

Beyond making a backup copy of someone else's generic Windows 2000 installation
CD (without their license key), what legitimate options are available to create
a setup disk set, run the recovery console, and repair a working Windows 2000
installation for these kind of systems?

 

[Alan Boritz]

that's how a lot of OEM systems operate.

For boot disks though try http://www.bootdisk.com

Thanks for the response. But is this a legitimate source recognized and approved
by Microsoft? Does this create a conflict in an environment that requires a
paid-up license for all installed software, if I download software that is
usually included only with a new license key?

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

Getting the 4 Setup boot diskettes is not a problem. There should
be a "C:\i386" folder on the hard drive of the laptop, which contains
the essential Win2K installation files. If so, you can create the
Setup boot diskettes by clicking Start >Run and typing
"C:\i386\Winnt32.exe /OX." This will create the necessary diskettes.
Alternatively, you can easily and freely obtain the necessary files
and instructions from www.bootdisk.com.

Bear in mind, however, that these Setup boot disks require the
presence of a real Win2K installation CD to do you any good. They
cannot perform any repair functions by themselves.

If using the OEM's "restore" CDs to return the hard drive to its
original, ex-factory condition is not a viable option (and I can
certainly understand how it might not be), the only legitimate,
"copywrite-friendly" way for you and your friend to obtain real Win2K
installation CDs would be to purchase additional licenses. The lack
of installation and repair options via the OEM channel is one of the
many reasons OEM licenses cost significantly less than retail software
licenses. I realize that it's no comfort to you now, but both you and
your friend got what you paid for.

To reduce the potential economic impact, you may be able to find
generic OEM installation CDs (that would accept your Product Key)
available at a second-hand software shop, a computer fair, or even on
eBay. Be very careful on eBay, however, as some sellers try to pass
off branded, BIOS-locked CDs as generic.


Bruce Chambers

--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

No, you didn't buy "fully functional operating system." You
bought a license to use an OEM operating system under the conditions
and restrictions inherent in such a license. In exchange for doing
so, you enjoyed significant financial savings. You got what you paid
for.


Bruce Chambers

--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH

wrote:


I'm not interested in what Microsoft "allowed." I bought a fully functional
operating system, and now it appears that it is NOT fully

functional.

Snipped....

 

[Ben-Zion Joselson]

Hi Alan,

There are a few avenues open to you:

1. You are fully entitled to repair and to maintain the
proper functioning of your Operating System by making full
use of your OEM Recovery CD, and not necessarily
restricting such use only to brute-force formatting and re-
installing.
Read very carefully the list of filenames in the Recovery
directory on your OEM Windows 2000 Recovery CD, check
their sizes (View menu > Details), and run a few Searches
for support tools in the OEM and in other Support
websites, and you may finally manage to create the 4
coveted W2K setup diskettes directly from your OEM Product
Recovery CD.

2. The 4 setup diskettes can be used to run Windows 2000
Recovery Console: Start your computer with the Windows
Setup floppy disks, [or with the Windows CD-ROM]. At
the "Welcome to Setup" screen, press F10, or press R to
repair, and then press C (Windows 2000 only) to start the
Windows Recovery Console. See Microsoft Knowledge Base
Article - 229716.

3. The winnt /ox and winnt32 /ox commands that you can use
to create Setup boot disks with Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
and earlier versions do not work with Windows 2000.

4. If you cannot start your computer, you can run the
Recovery Console from the Microsoft Windows XP startup
disks [or the Windows XP CD-ROM]. Microsoft Knowledge Base
Article - 307654 describes how to perform this task. In
this case, do not actually install an operating system
that is different from your Windows 2000, but restrict
your actions to recovery and repair using the basic
functions of the Recovery Console that are common with its
Windows 2000 version, as listed in your Help utility and
in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 229716.

 

[Alan Boritz]

Hi Alan,

There are a few avenues open to you:

1. You are fully entitled to repair and to maintain the
proper functioning of your Operating System by making full
use of your OEM Recovery CD, and not necessarily
restricting such use only to brute-force formatting and re-
installing.
Read very carefully the list of filenames in the Recovery
directory on your OEM Windows 2000 Recovery CD, check
their sizes (View menu > Details), and run a few Searches
for support tools in the OEM and in other Support
websites, and you may finally manage to create the 4
coveted W2K setup diskettes directly from your OEM Product
Recovery CD.

Unfortunately, that won't work. There are only two or three files on the system
recovery CD and no way to extract any individual files from the package.

2. The 4 setup diskettes can be used to run Windows 2000
Recovery Console: Start your computer with the Windows
Setup floppy disks, [or with the Windows CD-ROM]. At
the "Welcome to Setup" screen, press F10, or press R to
repair, and then press C (Windows 2000 only) to start the
Windows Recovery Console. See Microsoft Knowledge Base
Article - 229716.

That won't work, either, since it's prompting to insert the Microsoft Windows
CD, and there is no CD to insert.

3. The winnt /ox and winnt32 /ox commands that you can use
to create Setup boot disks with Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
and earlier versions do not work with Windows 2000.

That's correct, that won't work.

4. If you cannot start your computer, you can run the
Recovery Console from the Microsoft Windows XP startup
disks [or the Windows XP CD-ROM]. Microsoft Knowledge Base
Article - 307654 describes how to perform this task. In
this case, do not actually install an operating system
that is different from your Windows 2000, but restrict
your actions to recovery and repair using the basic
functions of the Recovery Console that are common with its
Windows 2000 version, as listed in your Help utility and
in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 229716.

That's an interesting point, I've downloaded the XP boot disk set from
Microsoft. Haven't tried that yet, but it still leaves me with the situation
that the installed operating system can't be repaired, even if you keep the ERD
up-to-date.

BTW, I was mistaken about my friend's computer model. It's an IBM Thinkpad, not
a Toshiba, but IBM doesn't seem to have a solution to that problem, either.

Right now it looks like at least Sony has been equipping their consumer
computers with a crippled version of Windows 2000 that can not be repaired using
the advertised features normally built into the operating system. I have NEVER
seen Sony disclose that fact to their customers.

 

[Alan Boritz]

Greetings --

No, you didn't buy "fully functional operating system." You
bought a license to use an OEM operating system under the conditions
and restrictions inherent in such a license. In exchange for doing
so, you enjoyed significant financial savings. You got what you paid
for.

Wrong. I bought a product advertised and presented as fully functional, when in
actuality it was (and still is) crippled, with no financial "savings." I very
definitely did NOT get what I paid for.

 

[Steve Parry [MVP]]

On Sun, 26 Oct 2003 12:58:27 -0800, "Ben-Zion Joselson"

Right now it looks like at least Sony has been equipping their
consumer computers with a crippled version of Windows 2000 that can
not be repaired using the advertised features normally built into the
operating system. I have NEVER seen Sony disclose that fact to their
customers.

To be honest Alan don't be overly harsh of Sony, just about every
manufacturer does this. For example we use Dells at work, the Dell
restore disk is a full version but "crippled" to only work on Dell
machines. Now one could argue that if a person has paid for the OS they
should be free to install it on a non Dell machine if the orginal PC
dies at some point. )