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Intel Processor Installation

Installing Windows NT Server is no trivial task. Depending on your installation option and the performance of your floppy drive, CD-ROM drive, or network adapter, a base installation may take you as little as 30 minutes to a maximum of 2 hours. In this section, we will look at the installation options to help you make the best determination as to which method to use.

Floppy Or CD-ROM

There is very little difference between the floppy and CD-ROM installations, aside from the time it takes to perform the base install. The only real difference is that you do not have access to the additional support files on the CD-ROM (such as the DRVLIB and SUPPORT subdirectories). In both of the installs, you run through the same three boot floppies to install the mini-kernel that runs the text-mode setup program. This setup program will then install the core system files, install the NT boot sector, then reboot to finish the installation with the graphical setup program. The complete process consists of the steps presented in this section.

1.  Insert the first setup boot floppy, and restart the computer.
When the computer restarts, you will see a white-on-black text message stating that setup is examining your hardware configuration. This will be followed by the Windows NT Setup screen (white text on a blue background). If you look closely at the bottom status line, you will see each file name display as each file is loaded. These files constitute what I refer to as the mini-kernel. After the files have loaded, you will be prompted to insert the second disk.
2.  Insert the second disk.

Because the hardware detection process scans your serial ports, you should disconnect any serial cable that is attached to a UPS. Otherwise, the UPS could go into a self test, switch to battery-only operation, or even reboot the computer. None of these actions are desirable.

The second disk continues to load specific device drivers and, after the drivers have been loaded, actually starts the multiprocessing kernel. If you look closely at the top of the screen at this point, you will see how much memory the kernel was able to detect and use. If this differs drastically from your installed memory, you will want to check your BIOS and EISA memory settings.
After the multiprocessing kernel loads successfully, the setup welcome screen will be displayed.
3.  At this point, you can press F1 for more information about the setup process, press Enter to continue the setup process, press R to repair a damaged installation, or press F3 to quit the install process.

Note:  Remember the installation sequence because this is the beginning of the process that you will use to repair a damaged installation of Windows NT Server when using the repair disk (which you will create as part of the install process, or which you can create by running the RDISK.EXE program after you have installed Windows NT). The repair process utilizes copies of the registry to replace a damaged registry component and can repair or replace missing boot or system files.

After pressing the Enter key to continue the installation, you will be given a choice whether to perform the detection process for floppy or hard disk controllers. In some cases, this process can cause your computer to hang or even reboot. But that is a very rare case. To be honest, I have never had it occur, although I know a few people who have had that experience. So, if you press the Enter key, the various device drivers will load and search for their supported adapters. If the adapter is found, then it will be displayed in the next screen. I normally recommend the autodetection process, particularly if you do not know what SCSI disk or proprietary CD-ROM controller you have installed. If you know what devices you have installed, you may bypass this autodetection by pressing the S key (to skip).
4.  Insert the third disk.
After inserting disk three, the next screen will display any detected SCSI disk controllers or proprietary CD-ROM drives that were found as part of the autodetection process. For argument’s sake, we will assume that either your adapter was not found or you have an OEM driver which you want to install.
5.  Press the S key to specify the device driver manually.
After you press S, you will be greeted with a list of supported SCSI and CD-ROM disk controllers along with the default entry of Other. You use the Other entry to specify an OEM disk. If you select this entry, you will be prompted to install the OEM disk into your A: drive to continue the installation process.
To manually install a device driver from the list, just scroll up the list with the up arrow key until your entry is highlighted, then press Enter. You will then be prompted to insert disk three into the A: drive. Once the disk has been inserted, press the Enter key. In any case, whether you install an OEM driver or manually install a driver, after the driver loads, you will be returned to the screen discussed in Step 4.
6.  Press Enter to continue the installation.
The additional device drivers will load (such as the Floppy, FAT File System, NTFS File System, and so on). Once the file system drivers are loaded, you might be greeted with a message about any unusual hard disk configuration information. For instance, I have a SCSI disk drive with more than 1,024 cylinders. The setup program dutifully informs me that MS-DOS may not be able to see a partition created on this disk if I use any of the cylinders above 1,024, and the program warns me about properly configuring the disk to obtain maximum usage from it.
After the additional device drivers have loaded, the setup program will scan for attached CD-ROM drives. If it finds one, it will include it in the list of installation media. If it does not find one, it will prompt you for disk four of the installation floppies.

Note:  If the setup program did not detect your attached CD-ROM drive, this means that one of two things has occurred—either the CD-ROM drive is non-SCSI and you did not install the appropriate device driver, or the CD-ROM drive is unsupported. Although, in very rare cases, you might have a supported non-SCSI CD-ROM with the appropriate device driver installed, and it still may not work. If this occurs, contact the manufacturer for an updated device driver.

You may have a similar problem with a SCSI controller and SCSI CD-ROM. In most cases, the problem related to either improper termination of the SCSI bus, no termination power is being supplied to the SCSI bus, an interrupt conflict with the SCSI adapter, or an older SCSI-I CD-ROM. In some cases, the CD-ROM drive can be configured to support either the SCSI-I or SCSI-II command set. If your CD-ROM supports this option, it should be set to SCSI-II for maximum compatibility. The other options you may want to look at are related to your SCSI controller. Many SCSI controllers support the ability to enable/disable synchronous negotiation with the SCSI device and support transfer rates above 5MB/sec. If you are having problems, disable synchronous negotiation, and set the transfer rate to a maximum of 5MB/sec. If you still have problems, contact the manufacturer of the CD-ROM drive.

7.  Assuming setup found your CD-ROM drive, press Enter to continue the installation.
A license agreement will be displayed.
8.  Page down to the end of the document, and press F8 (signifying your agreement).
Next, the setup program will scan your hard disk for locations to install Windows NT Server. If it finds one or more existing versions of Windows NT, each version will be listed as a possible upgrade option.
9.  Select the installation you want to install to or upgrade, then press the Enter key to begin the installation, or press N to pick a new installation directory.
The next screen will give you a chance to verify your hardware configuration. It includes information and choices about your computer, display adapter, keyboard, keyboard layout, and pointing device. All of these are user selectable by moving the highlighted bar to the appropriate entry with the up arrow key and then pressing Enter.
10.  After you make any necessary changes to your system configuration, move the highlighted bar back to the No Changes entry, and press Enter.
At this point, setup will scan for an alternate location to install Windows NT Server. If you have a version of Windows 3.x on your system, that will be the suggested location.
11.  Press the Enter key to accept the default, or press the N key to suggest a new location.
If you selected a different directory to install Windows NT Server into (i.e., you pressed N), the next screen will give you the choice to pick the partition you want to install Windows NT Server on. It also provides you with the option to either create (press C on the highlighted drive) or delete (press D on the highlighted drive) a partition. If, during one of the previous location prompts, setup could not find a drive with enough free space or could not find a supported partition, setup might display this same screen and request that you either repartition and/or reformat a drive.
12.  Select the appropriate partition by pressing your up/down arrow keys, and pressing the Enter key.
The next screen will prompt you for the file system you want for the installation partition. The choices are to format it as FAT or NTFS, convert the file system to NTFS, or leave it as is. If the partition you selected does not have enough free space, you will see this screen with a slightly modified description. Instead of a request for converting the file system or leaving it intact, it will request that you reformat it only. In any case, after having selected an appropriate partition, you will be given a choice to override the default installation directory of \WINNT. If you want to make a change, just press the Backspace key to delete the directory name, and enter your own directory name.
13.  Once you are satisfied with the installation directory setting, press Enter.

Note:  The directory name you select in Step 12 is limited to MS-DOS file names. It cannot exceed the 8.3 rule, nor can it include subdirectories.

The next screen will prompt you to perform an exhaustive check of your hard disk drive. It is not a very time-consuming process, nor is it what I would call an exhaustive disk check. Rather, it is just a CHKDSK of your hard drive, which looks for possibly cross-linked files or bad long file names. And I do recommend that you let the setup program perform this check of your hard disk to verify file system integrity.
14.  Press the Enter key to begin the hard disk scan, or press the Esc key to bypass it.
Once the scan is complete, the file copy process begins. At this point, the core system files are being copied to your system to allow the graphical portion of the setup process to continue the installation.
The next screen will flash by pretty quickly, but what it is stating is that the setup process is completing its installation. At this point, the Windows NT boot sector is being placed on your boot drive, the BOOT.INI file is being created, and the NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM files are being placed in the root directory of your boot drive. These support files will be marked as read-only, system, and hidden to prevent accidental deletion.

Never delete the files BOOT.INI, NTLDR, or NTDETECT.COM from the root directory of your boot drive. If any of these files are missing or damaged, Windows NT Server will fail to boot. You should also make sure not to delete BOOTSECT.DOS on a dual-boot computer as this file contains the MS-DOS boot sector. If you delete this file you will be unable to boot your previous operating system (usually MS-DOS and Windows). If you delete one of these files, you will be required to run through the repair process to replace the files.
15.  Remove any setup floppy left in your floppy disk drive, and press the Enter key to restart your computer and begin the graphical setup application.
Once your computer restarts, it will load the standard kernel, instead of the multiprocessor kernel, unless you specified a different computer during the custom installation process or the setup program detected a multiprocessor installation. Following this process, the SCSI, video, and other device drivers will load. Eventually, you will be presented with the Windows NT Setup dialog.
16.  Press the Next button to continue the installation.
At this point, you will be asked to specify your name and your company name.
17.  Fill in the Name and Company Name fields, then press Next.
You will then be asked to enter your product identification number. This number can be found either on the inside cover of your installation guide, on the back of the CD-ROM jewel case, or on your product registration card. It is needed if you are going to make use of the Microsoft technical support options.
18.  Enter your product identification number, then press Next to continue.
The next option is to select a license mode. It can be either Per Server or Per Seat. If you select Per Server, you must also indicate the maximum number of simultaneous connections to the server. The Per Server option is generally used with a particular server, while the Per Seat option is used when one or more servers can be accessed.
19.  Select a license mode then press Next to continue the installation.

Note:  If you are in doubt about which license mode to use, pick the Per Server option at this time, because you will be given a one-time chance to change this to a Per Seat option through the control panel licensing applet. While you may indicate more licenses than you really have in this dialog, it is a violation of a legal agreement between you and Microsoft. And this could cause you legal problems down the road. It is a much safer proposition to actually purchase the required number of client licenses and avoid any potential legal trouble.

You must next supply a unique computer name for your server (it cannot be the same name as any other computer in the domain, nor can it be the same as your domain name). The name may be up to 15 characters in length, but it cannot include a bullet (•), currency symbol (¤), broken vertical bar (|), section symbol (§), or paragraph symbol (¶).
20.  Enter a unique computer name, and press Next.

If you plan to use logon scripts for your users, as most of us do, then you should not include any spaces in your computer name. Otherwise, your MS-DOS clients may not be able to connect to your server’s netlogon share and execute the logon script.

Your next choice will be in the Windows NT Server Security Role dialog. Here, you have the choice of selecting this installation to be a domain controller (either Primary or Backup) or a server. A domain controller is used to interact with the domain by supplying user authentication and includes all of the administrative tools required to manipulate the user and computer accounts for the domain. A server is just a pumped-up version of Windows NT Workstation. It includes no user or computer database (as a domain controller does) or domain-based administrative tools. Unlike Windows NT Workstation, it does not include a 10-user connection limit.
21.  For our sample installation, let’s assume we are installing Windows NT as a Primary Domain Controller.

Make the domain controller versus server choice right the first time around, because if you make the wrong choice, you will be required to reinstall Windows NT Server in order to change it.

The next step is to specify your Administrator password.
22.  Enter your administrative password twice—once to enter it and once to confirm it—then press the Next button to continue.

Be sure to manually enter your password. Never cut and paste it. If you copy a typo, you will be unable to log on to the computer using the administrator account, which means you will have to reinstall NT to correct the problem. Secondly, be sure to write this password down somewhere and keep it in a secure place.

At this point, you will be offered the chance to create an Emergency Repair Disk (ERD). I recommend that you choose to create the repair disk, as you may need it in case of a disk or file system failure.
23.  Choose to create an Emergency Repair Disk.
Your next option will give you the choice of specifying the Windows components to install (these are the accessory applications, communication programs, games, screen savers, media files, background bitmaps, and Windows Messaging).
24.  Once you have made your selections, press the Next button.
Now comes the fun part: The Network setup process. You are now presented with the Windows NT Setup dialog for the “Installing Windows NT Networking”. Click the Next button to begin this process. This next dialog offers you two choices: Wired To The Network or Remote Access To The Network.
25.  If your server uses a network adapter, select the Wired To The Network checkbox. If it uses a modem as a network adapter, select the Remote Access To The network checkbox. Then, click the Next button.
You will then be asked if you would like to install the Microsoft Internet Information Server.
26.  Leave the Microsoft Internet Information Server checkbox checked if you want to host your own intranet server or provide Internet services. Otherwise, clear the checkbox. Then, press the Next button to continue.
At this point, the network adapter search dialog will appear.
27.  Click the Start Search button to begin the autodetection.
The dialog box will then display the network adapter that was found by setup.
28.  If the adapter listed is incorrect, press the Select From List button and manually select the right adapter, or install an OEM adapter driver. Then, click Next to continue.

If autodetection failed to find your network adapter, I recommend that you play it safe and install the MS Loopback adapter, even if you manually specify a network adapter. This is because Windows NT Server must have a network adapter that is functioning in order to log you on locally. You will need to log on locally later so that you can make configuration changes.

Your next choice will be to determine the network transport protocols you wish to install. You have a choice of NetBEUI, TCP/IP (the default), or IPX/ SPX. You can, of course, install all of them, but you will obtain better performance if you only use one of them.
29.  Indicate which network transport protocols you wish to use, then press the Next button.

Note:  As a quick summary, NetBEUI is the default protocol for Lan Manager and Windows for Workgroups clients, TCP/IP is the default for Unix clients, and IPX/SPX is the default for Novell NetWare clients. If you will be interacting with any of these operating systems, you will have to install the appropriate protocol.

You will now be prompted to choose the services to install. If you click the Select From List button, you may specify additional services to install at this time (such as Remote Access Service, Microsoft DNS Service, and so forth).
30.  After selecting the services to install, click the Next button.
You will now be informed that setup is ready to install these networking services.
31.  If all your selections are correct, click the Next button. Otherwise, click the Back button to work your way back through the dialogs so you can make any required changes.
The various protocols will be installed, and you might see additional installation and configuration options. For instance, for TCP/IP, you will be prompted to choose to use a DHCP server to assign an IP address or manually specify an IP address, subnet mask, default gateway, DNS server, and so on. The DHCP option can only be used if there is already an existing DHCP Server on the network. If selected, an IP address will automatically be provided by the DHCP Server.
32.  Make any additional installation and configuration selections, then click Next.
You will then be offered the opportunity to review your network bindings and rearrange or disable any network bindings you choose. If you are already familiar with these options, feel free to do so, otherwise I recommend that you leave things as they are until later. We will discuss some of these options in Chapter 8, “Boosting Network Performance.”
33.  Click the Next button to continue.
34.  Click the Next button to actually start the network.
Next, you will be prompted to supply a domain name. This name must be a unique computer name for your server (it cannot be the same name as any other computer in the domain). The name may be up to 15 characters in length, but it cannot include a bullet (•), currency symbol (¤), broken vertical bar (|), section symbol (§), or paragraph symbol (¶).
35.  Enter a unique domain name, then press Next.
Finally, you will see the Windows NT Setup finish dialog box.
36.  Click the Finish button, and the rest of the Windows NT system files will be copied to your computer.
If you choose to install the Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS), the Microsoft Internet Information Server Setup dialog box will be displayed.
37.  Make your IIS setup selections, and click Next as prompted to complete the IIS installation.
Next, you will be given the choice of selecting your date, time, and time zone.
38.  Select the appropriate date, time, and time zone settings, and then press OK to continue.
Your display will then go blank as Windows NT detects your video adapter. You may then make changes to your desktop area (resolution), refresh frequency, color palette, and font size. But you cannot change the display type at this point. That can only be done after the initial installation.
39.  Make any necessary setting changes provided in the dialog box, then select the Test button. This will display a test bitmap pattern. After answering the message box about whether or not you could see the bitmap, press the OK button to continue.
At this point, your system configuration will be saved to your repair directory located in your SystemRoot\Repair subdirectory.
Once setup has completed your repair disk, you will see your final setup dialog. This dialog will prompt you to reboot your computer. I suggest you do so at this time to make sure the system is functioning, and so that you may continue with the system configuration as outlined in the section titled “Initial Configuration.”
40.  Reboot your computer.


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