Category: Windows 2000 Professional

Hyper-V

Windows NT4 / 2000 Server and Workstation on a 2019 Hyper-V Cluster

Sometimes it’s necessary to install an old Operating System, but you really cannot (or don’t want to) get the old hardware out, even if it would still work.
I was in such a position that I had to install Windows 2000 Server. After locating the installation media, I decided it was a good idea to get it running on the 2019 Hyper-V cluster. This actually can be done, but there are a few hoops to jump through.

Update: This was written with Windows 2000 Adv. Server in mind, but I’ve since discovered the same procedure works for Windows NT4 with SP6a slipstreamed.

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Windows 2000 Professional

Slipstreaming Service Pack 4 into Windows 2000

When installing Windows 2000 (and also Windows NT4 or Windows XP/2003 or even MS Office versions), it’s usually easier and less error-prone to install the OS with the latest service-pack or SP already slipstreamed into the installation media. Quite often this will resolve driver issues which may cause Blue Screens of Death during installation.
This guide assumes you already have a copy of the installation media and SP handy and further assumes you’re working on the D-drive. The mounted image or DVD drive is assumed to be the E-Drive. You can substitute the drive letters with whichever you’re using.

What do we need:
1) At least 1GB free space on the hard disk you’re working on
2) A CDR/CDRW drive to burn the CD or a USB Pendrive with sufficient capacity already made bootable before copying the slipstreamed image
3) A Windows 2000 installation disc or .iso image
4) A copy of Windows 2000 SP4 in the same language as the install media

From here I find it easiest to work with the command prompt. This is just a habit however and there is no real difference between working with the prompt or working with the GUI.

Mount the installation media and create a work-in-progress folder:
mkdir D:\Windows2000\i386
cd D:\Windows2000\i386

Copy the contents of the i386 directory of the installation media to the folder you just created with:
xcopy e:\i386 d:\Windows2000\i386 /e

The servicepack you downloaded, is usually an executable. You can extract this with typing the filename.exe -x, so in my case that is:
D:\SP4\w2ksp4_en.exe -x

You’ll get a popup box asking for the destination of the extracted files. I normally put these in the same directory, so I enter: D:\SP4 and click Ok.
Once this is completed, CD to the directory with the extracted files:
cd D:\SP4\i386\update

Now run the following command to update the Windows 2000 installation folder:
D:\SP4\i386\Update\Update.exe -s:D:\Windows2000
Note: There is a space between Update.exe and the -s switch, but there is no space between the -s and the destination. You don’t need to specify the i386 folder in the path here.

Once this has completed, copy the contents of the Windows2000\i386 directory to your bootable pendrive or burn it to CD/DVD.