Booting Into the Installation Program

Now, do not touch the CD or the keyboard while the computer restarts. With any luck, after Setup decides not to boot into low-level setup (because you didn’t press any key when prompted), you will be transported to “Windows 2000 Professional Setup.” From there, you will be asked about regional options. Choose them (if you live in the US, leave them alone) and continue. Next, you will be prompted will a dialogue to enter a name (mandatory) and an organization (optional). Enter these as you please; however, make sure that the things you input as your name and organization are things that you wouldn’t mind showing up in your emails, Word documents, etc — the Windows Shell uses these two values quite a bit.

Next, you will be prompted to decide on a computer name. DO NOT use the default one that Windows provides; instead, use your own that you come up with. Try to make it something that you will remember, because NetBIOS functions depend heavily on the Computer Name. Note that your Computer Name is different than a User Name or a Domain Name. On the same screen is a place to enter the administrator’s password. I don’t care if you think you’re going to remember it – write it down, write it down, write it down.

When prompted for the date/time info, check your date and time, and make sure it is fairly accurate. However, don’t sweat too much over it – later on, we’ll see how to sync your computer with the atomic clock. Next, check your regional information and make sure you set the right time zone.

After that, Windows will do various networking “things,” and the status is indicated by a progress bar.

When the next screen comes up, the default choice will be to use “Typical settings.” Choose to use “Custom” settings. Then, appropriately configure your TCP/IP settings. Once you are done with that stuff, click “Next.”

The next dialogue will be one where you choose a Workgroup or join a Domain. Unless you are already a member of a domain, type in a workgroup name and click “Next.” From here, Windows will not bug you any longer. Instead, it will give you a series of progress indicators to the installation. Once the installation is complete, take the Windows 2000 CD out of the drive and click “Finish.” You are now done with the installation of Windows.

Your First Login

Now, once the computer boots up, login to Windows with your username and password. Hopefully, it works! If not, you should have written the password down.

The last of these low-quality screenshots. Thank goodness for screenshot software!