How To Fresh Install Windows 2000

[BillG]

I followed this procedure on my 600X and now have a very nice, stable install of Windows 2000 Pro. This is a Best Practices install.

You need to have downloaded all the Windows 2000 hardware drivers your laptop will need from the IBM website in advance. Either have those drivers burned onto a CD-ROM or a USB Flash Drive. You should also have on the CD or Flash drive:
- Service Pack 4 for Windows 2000
- SP4 Rollup 1
- A full download of Internet Explorer 6 SP1
- Your firewall install and anti-spyware install.

If you plan on doing any hardware upgrades - processor or memory - you should do that before installing the OS.

You are going to be logged on as Administrator during this entire procedure. You will notice that most of this is going to be done disconnected from the Internet. This is crucial, because a Windows 2000 computer connected to the Internet without SP4 is extremely vulnerable to all kinds of nasties that can bite your computer on the [censored]! DO NOT CONNECT TO THE INTERNET UNTIL ALL SERVICE PACKS, AND IE6, HAVE BEEN INSTALLED!!!

This is for Windows 2000, but really this procedure can be used as a guideline to fresh install any OS. The secret to a solid and stable install is the order in which you do things. After the base install of the OS, you install the hardware drivers so that the OS can interact with it properly. This will lay the foundation for the rest of the OS. After the OS is stabilized, IE6sp1 is installed on top of it If you are installing Microsoft Office, because it interacts with other programs it needs to be treated separately.

1. Disconnect any external mouse from your ThinkPad. Remove all PC Cards, USB devices, printers, serial port devices, or dock. In short, nothing external should be connected to your ThinkPad except the power cord. Make sure that the BIOS is set so that the CD-ROM drive is the primary boot drive.

2. Format your new hard drive in the ThinkPad you will be using it in. This is very important - the hard drive needs to be formatted in the hard drive bay of the same computer it will be used in. The new hard drive must be formatted by the exact same same hardware it will be running in. Don't format it in an external USB drive, or even in another computer of the same type! Don't ignore this warning or you risk having a mysteriously unstable computer that will trash the drive the first time you try to defrag it!

3. Boot from the Windows 2000 CD-ROM and install the basic operating system, following all instructions as to when to reboot and etc.

4. Install any ThinkPad hardware drivers not included with Windows 2000. For the 600X this will include TrackPoint, video drivers, and modem drivers.

5. Install SP4 for Windows 2000

6. Install SP4 Rollup 1 for Windows 2000

7. Install IE6sp1, and when done from IE go to Tools > Internet Options and carefully configure all your internet options

8. Install your Ethernet card or modem card and drivers - whatever you need to access the Internet.

9. Install your firewall and anti-spyware.

10. Now, you can connect to the Internet. Run Windows Update. Don't go browsing. ONLY access the Microsoft Update site at this point. I can't stress this enough. do NOT go browsing. First, select and install only the OS updates. Next, select and install IE6 updates. Then, upgrade DirectX to 9.0b. Last, install anything else that's left over.

11. Update your firewall and anti-spyware

12. Install your applications - MS Office, text editors, Acrobat, printer drivers, Photoshop, etc. You should install MS Office last, unless you have any applications that integrate with Office (like Adobe Acrobat) which need to be installed after you finish updating Office in Step 13.

13. Update MS Office, if installed. Note: if you are using Office 2000, you may want to avoid upgrading unless you notice stability problems with the suite. That's because SR-1 for Office 2000 noticeably slows Office.

14. Re-check all the ThinkPad hardware drivers you installed in Step 4. For example, the TrackPoint drivers may need to be re-installed because they might have been modified by the service packs.

15. Install an external mouse and drivers, if desired.

16. Install your anti-virus. Trend Micro or V-COM's SystemSuite is strongly recommended because according to PC World Magazine is has the least draw on system resources and so can prolong your battery life (Norton is amongst the most resource-intensive).

17. You're done!

The order here is very important. After the basic OS install you put the hardware drivers in place. You'll find that most probably all the motherboard drivers will be already included with Win2K, so you'll be installing modem drivers if you've got a built-in modem along with TrackPoint and maybe sound and video drivers.