Windows 2000 Pro Tips

Disclaimer: The tips and instructions contained in this document may or may not work on your PC and/or Windows 2000. I take no responsibility in system or software problems due to applying any of the information contained in this document.

Last Updated 05-27-2003

Here are a few Windows 2000 Pro Tips. I will add more in time.

Selections:

• FAT / NTFS
• System Information
• Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)
• Miscellaneous

FAT / NTFS

The following is a table depicting the range of megabytes per cluster size.
The table can be used to create FAT partition sizes that will utilize space efficiently.
1 megabyte = 1,048,576 bytes

Any hard drive larger than 2047 megabytes, would need to be partitioned since the maximum partition size cannot exceed 2047 megabytes.

What is the total amount of space used by a folder (including sub folders)? You can use Windows Explorer or command line.

Using Explorer:

• Start Explorer (Win key + E or Start - Programs - Explorer).
• Right click on the required folder and select properties.
• Under the General tab a size will be displayed and this is the total size of the folder and all sub-folders and their contents.

From the command line, just use the dir command with /s qualifier which also lists all sub-directories. For example, dir/s C:\WINNT will list all the files and folders in the WINNT directory. It will also show the total size at the end of the list.

Convert a FAT partition/drive to NTFS. Open a Command Prompt window and type convert /fs:ntfs. This is a one way conversion. Your partition will be converted on the next reboot.

Convert an NTFS partition to FAT. There are two ways to do this. The first would be to backup your NTFS partition and if it's greater than 2 gig, slice it up into 2 gig maximum partitions then format each to FAT. The second way would be to use Partiiton Magic version 5.0 or greater but beware if your NTFS partition is greater than 2 gig, you will have to slice it up into 2 gig partitions and convert each partition separately via Partition Magic.

Deleting an NTFS partition. Most of the time an NTFS partition can be deleted using FDISK and then delete the non-DOS partition. This will not work if the NTFS partition is in the extended partition. The only way to do this is use a utility called DELPART to delete it. You can delete an NTFS partition using Disk Administrator, by selecting the partition and pressing DEL (assuming it is not the system/boot partition).

Reading an NTFS partition from DOS or Windows 98. You can use a utility called NTFSDOS. This utility lets you READ an NTFS partition or drive but not WRITE.

Resizing an NTFS partition. Windows 2000 will not allow you to resize FAT or NTFS partitions. You have to use a 3rd party utility from PowerQuest called Partition Magic version 5.0 or greater.

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System Information

Windows Start-up options in boot.ini: Windows 2000 has several options you can use when starting your Computer:

[boot loader] section

• timeout=n - n=0 disables the automatic bootup; n=-1 starting without any delay; n>0 time in seconds system will wait (default n=30)
• default=..... - the default bootup command

[operating systems] section

• /basevideo Starts NT in VGA-Mode
• /crashdebug In case of fatal error NT activates external debugger
• /debug activates external debugger (default setting)
• /nodebug disables external debugger
• /sos Shows instead of point the drivers, which are actual loading
• /win98dos Starts DOS (looks like "C:\BOOTSEC.DOS="MS-DOS" /win98dos")
• /win98 Starts Win98 (looks like "C:\BOOTSEC.W40="Win98" /win98")

Make an 2000 boot disk. Here's how:

• Format a floppy diskette from Windows 2000. Open My Computer right click the floppy drive and select format.
• Add these files to the formated floppy: BOOT.INI, NTDETECT.COM, NTLDR and BOOTSECT.DOS.

If you only have Windows 2000 installed, you don't need the BOOTSECT.DOS file.
The floppy has to be formated in Windows 2000 to be a bootable diskette.

Create a multiple boot setup on your system. Have you ever wanted to boot Windows98, Windows 2000, DOS and maybe Linux from the NTLDR? There are a few utilities that will let you do that. One is Boot Partition. This freeware utility easily lets you setup a multiple boot system. The readme gives very easy instructions on how to use the utility.

Want to delete Windows 2000 from your system? Here's how (only if your system is using the FAT or FAT32 file systems):

• Have a DOS 6.x boot disk or Windows 98 startup disk handy. Reboot your system using either of these boot disks.
• From the A: prompt type sys c:. This will put the DOS or Windows 98 system files back on the C: drive so your system will boot to DOS or Windows 98.
• Next, type C: to get to the C: prompt and type attrib -s -r -h (filename) to the following files:
  BOOT.INI
  BOOTSECT.DOS
  NTBOOTDD.SYS (may not be present)
  NTDETECT.COM
  NTLDR
  PAGEFILE.SYS (this file may not be on the C: drive if Windows 2000 was installed on a different partition)
• Now delete the above files and reboot your system.
• You've just successfully deleted Windows 2000 off your system and returned it to DOS 6.x or Windows 98.

Windows 2000 and Windows 98 can reside on the same computer. If you are currently booting between Windows 2000 and MS-DOS 6.2x, the following method is recommended before you install Windows 98:

• If you do not have an Emergency Repair Disk for your Windows 2000 installation, create one by opening the Windows 2000 Backup utility, Welcome Tab and click the "Emergency Repair Disk" button (NT4 would be the RDISK utility (RDISK.EXE) in the %SystemRoot%\SYSTEM32 directory).
• Shut down Windows 2000 and restart your computer. Select MS-DOS from the boot loader menu.
• Install Windows 98. Make sure you install Windows 98 to a separate directory and not the Windows 2000 %SystemRoot% directory.
• After you successfully install Windows 98 and restart the computer, the Windows 2000 Flex Boot Loader screen appears, allowing you to choose between MS-DOS and Windows NT. If you choose MS-DOS, Windows 98 starts. You may change the MS-DOS entry of the Boot Loader menu to Windows 95 by modifying the Windows NT BOOT.INI file.

If the Windows 2000 Flex Boot Loader does not appear at the end of the procedure above, do the following:

• Insert the Windows 2000 Setup Boot Disk into drive A and restart your computer.
• Insert Setup Disk 2 when prompted.
• When the Setup options appear, press R for Repair. Four options appear and all four are selected by default.
• Clear the selection of all options except Inspect Boot Sector by pressing ENTER to select or clear the options. Be sure that Inspect Boot Sector is the only option that has an X in front of it.
• Select Continue and press ENTER.
• If you want Setup to detect mass storage devices in your computer again, press ENTER. If you want to skip the mass storage device detection, press S.
• Insert Setup Disk 3 when prompted.
• If you have the Emergency Repair Disk, press ENTER, insert the disk, and press ENTER again. If you do not have the Emergency Repair Disk, press ESC to allow Setup to locate Windows 2000 and the Repair information.
• Remove the disk from drive A and press ENTER to restart your computer. The Windows 2000 Flex Boot Loader appears and the dualboot ability is restored.

If only Windows 2000 resides on your computer:

• If you do not have an Emergency Repair Disk for your Windows 2000 installation, create one by opening the Windows 2000 Backup utility, Welcome Tab and click the "Emergency Repair Disk" button (NT4 would be the RDISK utility (RDISK.EXE) in the %SystemRoot%\SYSTEM32 directory).
• You will need a boot floppy from DOS or Windows 98 (depending on what you are installing).
• Make sure your CDROM driver and mscdex.exe are on the boot diskette so your CDROM is accessible. Make sure your config.sys has the CDROM driver in it and your autoexec.bat file has the mscdex.exe in it. Make sure sys.com is on the boot floppy.
• Put the DOS/Windows 98 boot diskette in drive A: and reboot your computer.
• At the A: prompt, type 'sys C:' (without the quotes). This will transfer the boot floppy's system files to the boot C: drive so that you can install DOS or Windows 98 (Windows 98 requires system boots during install which could cause a reboot loop if the sys C: was not done and the WIndows 2000 Flex boot loader appears)
• Reboot your machine and begin your install of DOS 6.x or Windows 98.
• After your install is completed, reboot and go to the section above labeled "If the Windows 2000 Flex Boot Loader does not appear at the end of the procedure above, do the following"

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Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)

These instructions assume you already have your LAN configured and working. If not, take a look at this page for Windows 2000 network configuration information Windows 2000 Network Verification before you go any further.

Microsoft Support Articles for ICS:

• Discription of Internet Connection Sharing
• How to Troubleshoot Internet Connection Sharing Problems
• Security Features of Internet Connection Sharing
• PPPoE With ICS Requires MTU Setting Below 1492 on the ICS Clients

Thanks go to Chris Schofield for these instructions!!

Setting up ICS on a Windows 2000 machine:

• Open Control Panel/Network and Dial-up Connections.
• Right click the dial-up connection and choose Properties. Fig .1a If you have a cable modem connection you will not have the 5 tabs in this example, but you should have the Sharing tab for the NIC you're using . Fig.1aa
• Click the Sharing tab and check the “Enable Internet Connection Sharing for this connection” checkbox.  To allow your client machine(s) to dial the Windows 2000 machine, click the “Enable on-demand dialing”.  Fig .2a For a cable modem connection see Fig.1aa

Fig .1a

 

Fig .1aa

 

Fig .2a

Setting up the client machine:

• If you are using DHCP and your Windows 9x or Windows 2000 machine is getting its IP address from the Windows 2000 machine, you can skip the remainder of this setup.
• For a Windows 9x machine, add the Windows 2000 machine's IP address into the Default Gateway of the client machine. Ensure you have the Windows 2000 machine's IP address in the DNS Search Order List (Control Panel/Network/TCP/IP -> NIC Adapter/Properties/DNS tab), Host: filled in and Domain: left blank. If you have to add any of this information, you will need to reboot your Windows 9x machine.
• For a Windows 2000 machine, add the IP address of the Windows 2000 Host machine running ICS into the Default Gateway of the client machine. Ensure you have the Windows 2000 Host machine's IP address in the Preferred DNS Server (Control Panel/Network and Dial-up Connections/LAN connection Properties/General tab/ Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) entry Properties).
• Your client machine is ready to share the host machine's Internet connection!

Setting up the client side for www, mail and news (dial-up users):

• You simply setup your mail and news applications on the client machine(s) the same way you would if you were dailing up from that machine. No special configuration is necessary. With the browser make sure you specify "Never dial a connection" (Internet Explorer).

Setting up the client side www, mail and news (cable modem users):

• Open a Command Prompt on the Windows 2000 Host machine and type "ping www" without the quotes. Look for the IP address that is returned. It should look something like this,
  Pinging something.com [111.111.111.11] with 32 bytes of data:
  Write down the IP address which associates to www (111.111.111.11).
• Repeat the prior step for mail and again for news. For example "ping mail" and "ping news" without the quotes. Write down the IP address for both.
  Pinging mail.something.com [111.222.222.22] with 32 bytes of data:
  Pinging news.something.com [111.333.333.33] with 32 bytes of data:
• On the client machine, open the HOSTS.SAM or HOSTS file. Do a FIND for HOST. Edit the HOSTS.SAM or HOSTS file with Notepad and enter entries for www, mail and news with the IP addresses that you wrote down from the ping command. The entries should look something like this:
  #
  # For example:
  #
  # 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
  # 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host
  
  127.0.0.1 localhost
  111.111.111.11 www #cable www server
  111.222.222.22 mail #cable mail server
  111.333.333.33 news #cable news server
• Make sure you SAVE THE FILE AS HOSTS. This means if you're editing a HOSTS.SAM file, you need to save it as HOSTS with no extension.
• Open your client machine's email application, find the POP and SMTP server definitions and type "mail" without the quotes for both.
• Open your client machine's news application, find the NEWS server definition and type "news" without the quotes.

Application Considerations:

For the below instructions, it is recommended that the client machine(s) have static IP addressing. If you "Obtain an IP address automatically", you could constantly be changing the IP address in the Services tab entries on the Windows 2000 ICS Settings. See DHCP addressing -vs- manually assigned IP addressing at the end of this Section.

mIRC Instructions to allow a CLIENT machine to DCC Chat/Send/Receive:

The configuration of the machines used for this example is as follows:

• Windows 2000 host - IP Address 192.168.0.1 (As .1 is always assigned by ICS)
• Windows 98 client - IP Address 192.168.0.108 (static IP address)
• IRC Client application used -- mIRC V5.7

The instructions below are to be applied to the client machine’s mIRC app.

First things first, reconfigure mirc for the limited DCC port range to be used.

• Open the mIRC options window
• Go to DCC Options
• Under DCC Ports, type next to First - 1024 and next to Last - 1027 as in Fig .1b

Fig .1b

Ok, mIRC is configured on the client machine.

The instructions below are to be applied to the ICS entries on the host Windows 2000 machine.

Windows 2000 ICS IdentD configuration:

• Go to the dialup connection you wish to use and select Properties
• Click on the Sharing tab then click the settings button
• Click the Services tab
• Select Add and enter the details as shown in Fig .2b remembering to substitute the client machine's static IP Address to that of your own
• Click OK

Fig .2b

Windows 2000 ICS DCC port configuration for DCC CHATS / SENDS:

• Go to the dialup connection you wish to use and select properties
• Click on the Sharing tab then click the settings button
• Click the Services tab
• Select Add and enter the details as shown in Fig .3b remembering to substitute the example client machine's static IP Address to that of your own client machine
• Repeat the step above for all ports up to 1027 as shown in Fig .4b

Fig .3b

Fig .4b

Using the steps listed above will allow identd requests to be forwarded and will also allow a maximum of 4 concurrent DCC SEND/CHAT combinations.

ICQ (version ICQ2000a) Instructions to allow file transfers (thanks go to Bernard Li for the ICQ instructions):

• Go to the dialup connection in Windows 2000 you wish to use and select Properties
• Click on the Sharing tab then click the Settings button
• Click the Services tab and Add a service called ICQ.
• Select Add and enter the details as shown in Fig .2b remembering to substitute the Port number that ICQ connects to via the login.icq.com (check this info from your ICQ preference, connection, login, etc.) and change the client machine's static IP Address to that of your own
• Click OK

DHCP Addressing -vs- manual IP assigned addressing:

• If the Windows 2000 host machine is setup to do DHCP and the client machine is setup to "Obtain an IP address automatically" and the client machine is rebooted, you will need to change each of the DCC entries (eg. 1024-1027) on the Windows 2000 host machine to reflect the NEW IP address that was assigned to the client. For example, the network is up and running with the Windows 2000 host as IP address 192.168.0.1 and the client machine as IP address 102.168.0.108. The client machine was rebooted forcing it to receive a new IP address of 192.168.0.235. The old IP address in the DCC1024- DCC1027 entries would need to be updated to 192.168.0.235 for the client machine to be able to DCC SEND/CHAT. Rebooting the client machine is one way DHCP will assign a new IP address. Another way I've experienced is when I change the IP address in the "Services" tab to reflect the reboot. The IP address changed again. So, using DHCP when port mapping is NOT preferred.
• If the client machine is manually set to a static IP address, then there would be no reason to change the IP address in the DCC1024-DCC1027 entries on the Windows 2000 host machine.

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Miscellaneous

For a nice system uptime utility, get uptime.exe from Microsoft.

Need a Windows boot floppy? Download this file (Windows 98 SE boot floppy create).

Looking for TWEAKUI? You can get v1.33 from Microsoft or tweakui.

Looking for a GUI ipconfig like Windows 9x's winipcfg? You can find a GUI download the free version called wntipcfg_setup.exe

Looking for a way to install applications or run applications with Admin rights?

• Hold down the Shift key as you right-click on the program's setup file or executable file.
• Click Run as.
• Type in a username and password that have Administrative permissions.
• This will also work on applications in the Start menu.

Looking for Microsoft FrontPage Express? Microsoft discontinued including it with Internet Explorer starting with IE5.5 but you can navigate through this MS support page or click here to download the setup file.

To schedule your built in defrag, use this handle utility rundfrg.zip. Below describes how to setup a .bat file and schedule the defrag. There have been reported problems with this utility but I have never experienced any problems. Visit this page http://www.jsiinc.com/TIP2000/rh2062.htm

• Place the Rundfrg.exe from the rundfrg.zip into C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32
• Open Notepad and place entries in it for all the drives you want to defrag (example shown below). I found it best to run a second pass on the drives to completely defrag them. Save the file as a .bat file
  rem 1st pass
  C:\WINNT\system32\RunDfrg.exe C:
  C:\WINNT\system32\RunDfrg.exe D:
  rem 2nd pass
  C:\WINNT\system32\RunDfrg.exe C:
  C:\WINNT\system32\RunDfrg.exe D:
• Create a Scheduled Task in Control Panel / Scheduled Tasks. Click Add Scheduled Task. Click Next to continue. Click the Browse button and find the .bat file you created in the prior step and click Open. Type any name for your Schedule and select the frequency you want to run the task. Enter the computername\username you want the task to run under (use the username you logged in as.. eg.. MSHOME\billyk), the password of that user and confirm the password. Click Next, check the "Open advanced properties for this task when I click Finish". Click Finish. Replace the "Start In:" with C:\WINNT\system32.

There is another Windows 2000 defrag call AutoDeFrag. Visit this page for details http://www.morphasys.com/autodefrag/index.htm.

Automatic Logon: If you're the only person using a given Windows 2000 PC, you can set Windows 2000 to automatically log you in at boot time. Open Control Panel, then Users and Passwords icon. Select a user from the list, then uncheck the "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer" box.

Move the swap file: Got more than one Drive in your system? Put your swap file on a drive or partition separate from your WINNT directory for better performance. Right-click on My Computer, then select Advanced, Performance Options, and Change. Select the drive you want your swap file to go on. Type in the Initial and Maximum sizes, click Set. (Be sure to set the swap file on your system drive as well, although don't remove it completely unless you want to disable crash logging.)

Use Ctrl+Alt+Del for security: By default, Windows 2000 lets you log in without having to press Ctrl-Alt-Del to obtain the login screen. You can change this by opening the Control Panel and looking in the Users and Password. In the Advanced tab, check "Require users to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete before logging on."

Turn off the Start button's Personalized Menus: If you're not fond of Windows 2000 using the Personalized Menu system in the Start button menus, you can turn it off. Right-click on the Taskbar, select Properties, and deselect the "Use Personalized Menus" checkbox.

Windows 2000 Mini Web Server: Don't want to install Windows 2000 Server to do prototype web work? You can install a stripped-down version of IIS in Windows 2000 Professional. Click on Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel, select Add/Remove Windows Components. Select Personal Web Server and click OK.

Restore Show Desktop Icon to Quick Launch on Taskbar: If the Show Desktop icon is deleted from Quick Launch, the procedure below will recreate the file. Open Notepad and enter the following text:

[Shell]
Command=2
IconFile=explorer.exe,3
[Taskbar]
Command=ToggleDesktop

Save the new file as Show Desktop.scf then drag and drop the icon on the Quick Launch bar or whatever location you want the shortcut to appear.

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