User:BF10/Sandbox/3

This guide lists how to generally install Windows versions. This guide only provides instructions for installing Windows on a new hard drive that doesn't have partitions; this guide does not provide instructions for creating a proper virtual machine configuration for Windows. For these configurations, see Draft:Recommended VM configurations.

Overview
These early versions of Windows are not their own standalone operating system; they run under DOS as an "operating environment" shell interface. As a result, they require MS-DOS to be installed in order to be installed on top of MS-DOS. No version of early DOS-based Windows have bootable installation media. This applies to Windows 1.0 up to Windows 3.1x.

In order to install these versions, you need to have a copy of MS-DOS. The version that you can use is up to your desire, but note that:
 * No version of Windows is compatible with MS-DOS 1.x.
 * Windows 1.0 requires at least MS-DOS 2.00.
 * Windows 2.x requires at least MS-DOS 3.00.
 * Windows/386 should be installed in a MS-DOS version below 5.0, as the high memory driver in MS-DOS 5.0 conflicts with the one loaded in Windows/386, resulting in Windows can only boot in real mode (via  instead of  ).
 * Windows 3.0 and Windows 3.1x requires at least MS-DOS 3.10.
 * Windows for Workgroups 3.1x requires at least MS-DOS 3.30.
 * It is recommended to use a MS-DOS version below 4.0 for Windows 1.0 and Windows 2.x (see "Early DOS-based Windows - "Incorrect DOS version" on DOS 5 or later" section below). Otherwise, MS-DOS 6.22 should run all versions just fine.

Install your desired MS-DOS version (using  and   to partition and format a hard drive and   to copy the system files if you're installing an earlier version of MS-DOS). Once you boot to the hard drive, insert the Windows installation floppy disk to a floppy drive, change the drive in MS-DOS to that floppy drive, and run. Be sure to eject the floppy drive once you have finished installing Windows.

Windows 3.0 MME comes in CD-ROM media, but again isn't bootable and requires a CD-ROM driver in MS-DOS to be installed. The setup in these versions are located in the  directory of the installation media.

Overview
Windows 9x (Windows 95, Windows Nashville, Windows 98, and Windows Me) are now standalone operating systems, and thus can be installed without an existing version of MS-DOS before installation. However, many of the installation CD-ROMs are still not bootable; most retail versions aren't bootable and bootable versions were usually exclusive to OEMs.

If the installation media cannot be booted into, you must use a Windows boot disk to install Windows from there. A Windows 98 Second Edition boot disk is recommended. Initiate a drive using  and , then change to the drive of the installation media (usually   or  ). If  isn't in the root directory of the drive, try checking for any of these directories, which may have  :
 * (Chicago builds)
 * (Windows 95 and Nashville)
 * (Windows 98)
 * (Memphis/Millennium builds and Windows Me)
 * (Windows Me)

To start setup, run. The  switch will ignore ScanDisk and instantly start setup, but you can remove the switch if desired.

If you load  and it gives a notice about enabling large disk support (FAT32), what you have to respond will depend on the version of Windows to install. If you are installing any version of Windows 95 before OEM Service Release 2 or Windows Nashville, you must not enable large disk support, as these versions are not compatible with FAT32 and their installers will be unable to find the hard drive. Otherwise, you should enable large disk support to use more than 2 GB of hard drive space on Windows (see "Earlier versions of Windows - partition size limited to 2 GB" section below).

Overview
Earlier versions of Windows NT were intended to boot into setup using three setup boot floppies, which copies drivers and loads information files from these floppies. This prominently applies to versions before Windows NT 4.0, although boot disks were available as a legacy setup option until Windows 2000. Windows NT 3.5 offers an option to copy the setup files to the hard drive, which should be used on builds without a bootable installation media or those that bugcheck when booting from it. As of Windows NT 4.0, the installation CD-ROM media can be booted from directly, and is the recommended installation method.

On Windows NT 3.1, you must use the first boot floppy to start setup and follow the instructions as setup states. Alternatively, use a Windows boot disk (recommended is a Windows 98 SE boot disk), initiate a drive (using  and  ), and run setup via   in the   directory of the installation media (in most cases, you should also run   to allow direct disk access to the hard drive for Windows NT Setup, otherwise setup can exit with "Windows has disabled direct disk access to protect your long filenames" error message and halt the system). This secondary method will still require three setup boot floppy disks to be formatted and created by setup. On Windows NT 3.5 build 756 and above, you can run  instead to copy the setup files to the hard drive, which is usually more successful. On Windows NT 4.0 and above, you should boot directly to the installation media, unless booting to it fails (see "My ISO won't boot" section above).

It is imperative that you do not restart during the GUI portion of setup before setup is complete on Windows NT 3.x or early Windows NT 4.0 builds. If you do, setup will not reload, giving you a bricked system with the error "The system is not fully installed. Please run setup again."

Do note that FAT32 isn't supported by default on Windows NT until Windows 2000. If prompted to enable large disk support (FAT32) on  on a Windows boot disk, it should be disabled if you're installing Windows NT 4.0 or earlier.