Frame Corner

Frame Top

GSW Study Notes Home

GSW MCSE Notes Home Networking Essentials Notes NT Server 4.0 Notes NT Administration Notes

Module 2: Installing Windows NT

Preparing for Installation
Hardware Requirements
Disk Partitioning

System Partition

Selecting a File System

FAT

Allows access to

NOTE
To enable Windows NT to dual boot with other Operating System (s) (OS), the system partition must be FAT. Windows NT does not support FAT32 (used by Windows OSR2).

NTFS

You should use NTFS when:

HPFS

Choosing a Server Role

Windows NT knows three server roles:

Notes about Member Servers

Any BDC can validate logon requests from:

Planning Domains

Assorted points you should know about servers in the domain.

Notes about Member Servers

The SID is created during installation. The only way to change the domain's SID is to reinstall. In order to move a PDC to a new domain you need a new domain SID. This is why you need to reinstall the PDC.

Although a member server may be part of a domain, it does not have the domains SID.

Choosing a Licensing Mode

This is covered in detail elsewhere

CAL = Client Access License.

With Per Server licensing, each CAL is assigned to a particular server and allows one connection to that server (you will be allowed to connect to multiple shares with that server).

With Per Seat licensing, a CAL applies to a specific client or seat. After a client is licensed for Windows NT Server, it has permission to access all the computers running Windows NT Server throughout the organization.

If you are not sure what sort of licensing method to choose, choose Per Server. There is a one time conversion possibility to Per Seat (and only from Per Server --> Per Seat, not Per Seat to Per Server!!). To do this, use the license program in control panel.
 

Window NT Installation
Note: Regardless of the platform, once setup is started it looks the same on all of them.
Windows NT Setup Option

During the installation of Windows NT/WS you will have 4 setup options:

1:  Typical installs:

2:  Portable installs:

3:  Compact installs:

4:  Custom

Creating and Joining a Domain

After that the SID will be created.

Note: Workgroup and domain can share the same names but this can get very confusing:

Joining a Domain

 

Phase 0

During the initialization portion, setup requires the following info (Server and NT/WS) :

The following is an overview of the various steps for installing Windows NT. "X", in the options column marks if information is needed for Windows NT.
 

Phase 1

Phase 1 begins with the appearance of the Windows NT Setup Wizard.

Is info Needed?

Gathering information

WS

Server

Installation method, such as Typical or custom

X

Name and org. information of the person who is licensed

X

X

Licensing mode

X

Computer name (up to 15 characters, and must be unique)

X

X

Type of Server

X

Password for the administrator account

X

X

Whether to make a emergency repair disk

X

X

Installation of the optional results (if you choose Custom install on NT/WS)

X

X

Phase 2
Phase 2 begins when the Wizard introduces "Installing Windows NT Networking"

Installation of Windows NT networking

WS

Server

Specify what components should be installed

X

X

Should IIS be installed

X

Installation of the NIC (Network Interface Card)

X

X

Choose protocols
  • Workstation default: TCP/IP
  • Server defaults: TCP/IP and NWLink

X

X

Optional and additional network services. By default these are installed:
  • the Computer Browser
  • NetBIOS interface
  • RPC configuration
  • Server Service
  • Workstation Service

X

X

Select if you want to join a domain or workgroup

X

X

 

Note: when asked to select a domain or workgroup during the Setup, you can create a computer account by selecting "Create computer account in domain" and enter administrator user name and password.

 

Phase 3

The Wizard introduces "Finishing Setup"

To finish setup some final info is needed:

Now you can make a Emergency Repair Disk if you want to.

Performing a Server Based Installation

In order to use a server based network installation you need to setup a distribution server, do this in one of the following ways:

 

Note: On RISC-based computers this method can only be used to upgrade or reinstall.
Installing Windows NT Using Winnt.exe

"winnt.exe" is used for installing Windows NT, it follows three steps:

  1. Creates three startup disks.
  2. Creates a "$Win_nt$.~ls" temporary folder and copies Windows NT Server files to this folder.
  3. Prompts the user to restart the computer with the first floppy to boot.

There are several switches that can be used with the "winnt.exe" command.

Winnt32.exe

Performing an Unattended Installation

This is done with the /u option and is used to specify the ANSWER file.

You can then further customize the various setup configurations by using Uniqueness Database Files (to identify settings unique to a computer). The UDF’s are used to provide replacements for sections of the answer file or to supply extra sections. The file is indexed via strings called uniqueness IDs.

The UDF is used to specify a set of sections that should be merged into the answer file at the start of the GUI’s setup. It takes place before any affected components actually read the components of the answer file.

To specify such an installation, use either "winnt.exe" or "winnt32.exe as follows:

WINNT /U:answer_filename /UDF: ID [,database filename]

ID is the uniquemess ID to use while installing Windows NT.

Upgrading to Windows NT 4.0

Upgrade from

To Server 4.0
DC

To Server 4.0
Member server

To workstation 4.0

WS 3.51

No

Yes

Yes

Member Server 3.51

No

Yes

No

DC 3.51

Yes

No

No

Note: You cannot upgrade from Windows 95 to NT 4.0, in order to install NT 4.0 install it in a seperate directory and delete all the Windows 95 files and directories. After that you will have to reinstall all applications. The best way to do all this is backup all your data, format the drive and install NT 4.0

The upgrading preserves existing registry settings, including:

The text mode file will contain the following entries:

Entries Explanation
[data] 

msdosinitiated="1" 

floppyless="1" 

uniqueid="C:\WINNT\LCK"

msdosinitiated, indicates if setup was started by winnt/winnt32 or from CD-ROM. Set to "1" indicates that it was started by winnt/winnt32. 

Floppyless, "1" means that "/b" was used. 

Uniqueid, identifies the installation to upgrade (if the computer has multiple Windows NT installations)

Note: If you are shown a file with other entries than the ones mentioned in text mode section, you may conclude that it concerns a graphical mode parameter file.
The sysdiff.exe Utility

Applications that do not support scripted installations, can be installed during Windows NT Setup only by using this utility! The process to use sysdiff.exe is to:

After sysdiff.exe is used there are two ways to add the applications:

Removing Windows NT from a FAT or from a NTFS partition

 

From a FAT partition

By removing the NTFS partition

  1. Start Win95 or MS-DOS from a system disk that contains the "Sys.com" file.
  2. From drive a: type sys c: (system files are being transferred from the hard disk)
  3. Restart the system.
  4. To free more disk space, remove
  • All paging files (Pagefile.sys….)
  • C:\boot.ini
  • NT*.*
  • C:\bootsect.dos
  • The \wint_root folder
  • \Program files\Windows NT 
You need the Setup Boot Disk and

You can use one of the following:

  • MS-DOS 6.0 ­ (will remove an NTFS partition, but not an NTFS logical drive in extended MS-DOS partition)
  • OS/2 1.x installation disk A, deletes all partitions on the first physical drive. 
  • Windows NT Setup, using the boot disks, at the section where you can choose to install Windows NT, you can delete a partition by highlighting it and pressing D to delete it.
Note: the older versions of fdisk will not remove an NTFS partition.

 

Top of Page Top of page

E-mail Me! Comments and suggestions? E-mail me at grantwilson21@yahoo.com
I'm sorry, but I can't answer specific network-related, or exam-related questions.
Last Updated: August 6, 2001 Grant Wilson, Edmonton, AB Canada