On 31 Aug 99, at 9:28, Elizabeth Boston wrote:

>         I'm getting ready to build my first computer with Windows NT on
> it. While I've installed 95 and 98 dozens of times, I've never installed
> NT.
>         What do I need to know/do differently from my usual routine?
> Does NT have it's own fdisk and format files? How do I get an NT
> boot disk, the OS came with two CDs but no floppies.

  Hmmm...  I think you'll find that one CD is NT and the other is some kind
of supplement (perhaps the "Option Pack"?).

  The NT install CD is bootable; if your hardware is directly supported by NT
"out of the box", that may be all you need.

  If your system cannot boot from the CD-ROM drive, or if you need to add NT
drivers for your CD-ROM drive or hard drive(s) [eg., to support a U2W SCSI
controller...], you'll need to generate a set of three boot/install
diskettes.  The WINNT.EXE program on the CD will do this when run with the
"/Ox" option.  [There's also a WINNT32.EXE on the CD, which provides similar
but requires an NT system to run.]  Boot from diskette 1 and follow the
directions on the screen.

  At the point where the NT install needs you to specify what partition to
install to, it provides ways for you to create and delete partitions; not
quite so full-featured as FDISK, but adequate.
  NOTE:  The partition creation code can only create FAT partitions directly.
 NT supports a larger cluster size for FAT than DOS or Win 9x, but this only
increases the FAT partition size limit to 4 GB.  If you want your boot
partition to use NTFS, it will be created using FAT and then converted; this
means that, unlike normal NTFS partitions, it must initially be limited to 4
GB in size.  [You can use Partition Magic to resize it later, or use Disk
Administrator (one of the NT tools) to extend it by adding additional
partitions to the volume.]

  If you are installing NT server, you'll be asked if you want the machine to
be a Primary Domain COntroller, Secondary Domain COntroller, or Stand-Alone
Server.  Domain COntrollers handle network signon authentication and the
like.  If you are transitioning from peer-to-peer networking to make this a
server-centric network, you might want to make this machine a PDC and add
your other machines to its domain.  [In a network with a PDC and several
BDCs, the PDC can be demoted and a BDC will be promoted to PDC in its place.
Other than this, a machine cannot switch roles except by a reinstall of NT
Server, so planning at this point could save you effort later.]



David G

                         PCBUILD's List Owner's:
                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
                       Drew Dunn<[log in to unmask]>