How to Determine if Windows 2000 is an Upgraded Installation or a Clean Installation (258504)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
This article was previously published under Q258504

SUMMARY

This article describes how to determine whether an installation of Windows 2000 is an upgraded installation or a clean installation.

MORE INFORMATION

During the installation process, the $winnt$.inf file is created and placed in the Winnt\System32 folder. If you open the file in a text editor, such as Notepad, you can view the information that is necessary to determine how the operating system was installed.

Under the "[data]" section, values exists for each of the possible upgrade paths. For example:

[setupparams]
skipmissingfiles = "0"
[data]
unattendedinstall = "no"
floppylessbootpath = "no"
producttype = "winnt"
standardserverupgrade = "no"
winntupgrade = "no"
win9xupgrade = "no"
win31upgrade = "no"
sourcepath = "\device\cdrom0\"
floppyless = "0"
msdosinitiated = "0"
dospath=D:\

If all of the variables in the file ending in "upgrade" are equal to "no," the file was obtained from a computer where Windows 2000 was a clean installation on a partition where there was not an existing operating system.

Some of the other information that can be obtained from the file mentioned above include whether the operating was installed in unattended mode, and the source path from which the setup files were copied. This file may differ slightly from the example.
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:11/20/2003
Keywords:kbenv kbhowto kbsetup kbUpgrade w2000setup w2000upgrade KB258504
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