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Christopher Spry
28/06/2020

Guide to install Microsoft's 'Windows 2000 Professional' on Toshiba Tecra 730 computers

This page was written by Christopher Spry. This set of guidelines was written on 25 February 2000, ten days after I had completed installing Microsoft's 'Windows 2000 Professional' on my Tecra 730XCDT notebook computer. It runs very well. I hope that my experience will be of use to other people installing 'Windows 2000 Professional' on Tecra 730 computers. It complements my earlier 'Guidelines for installing 'NT 4.0 workstation' on Toshiba Tecra 730XCDT computers' and my later 'Guide to installing Microsoft's 'Windows 2000 Professional' on a Toshiba Tecra 8100 computer'.

Index

Hardware

The Tecra 730XCDT computer has a 60 Hz 12.1" screen showing up to 64,000 (16-bit) colours at 1,024 x 768 pixels resolution (XVGA) using the Chips & Technologies CT65550 video controller chip, a 150 MHz Pentium processor with MMX and a 30 MHz PCI bus. The removable CD-ROM drive is model XM-1502B. The hard disk is a Toshiba 2.1 GB hard disk pack which uses enhanced IDE. There is an external/internal 3.5" floppy drive.

I added additional memory so that I have now have the maximum amount of memory for this system (149-MB) . I bought a 5-GB drive to replace the 2-GB drive that came with the system. I bought the extra memory and hard disk upgrades from Micro Solutions Inc. I can warmly recommend both 'upgrades'. I recommend that you have at least 128 MB total memory to run 'Windows 2000'. I also bought a 'D-link' DE-650' ethernet PC-card and fast PC-card modem as the internal modem is slow. 

The Tecra 730XCDT is not compliant with the 'Advanced Configuration and Power Interface' (ACPI) but it will run many of the important power management function, including 'Standby' and 'Hibernate'. 'Windows 2000 Professional' knows this, and will install the functions correctly without user intervention on the Tecra 730XCDT. The infra-red (IrDA) port on this computer is not supported under 'Windows 2000 Professional' and it does not have any USB ports.

'Windows 2000 Professional'

Details about hardware and software that will run in 'Windows 2000' are at Microsoft's Windows 2000 compatibility site. Hardware Update is a site produced by Microsoft and a number of major PC manufacturers which has information on which computers can run 'Windows 2000' and where to obtain the BIOS and driver updates to run it. Go to Microsoft's hardware compatibility page and enter the names of the components in your system (such as graphics cards, printers, sound cards, and network adapters). If all of your parts are compatible, your hardware is ready to start running Windows 2000. Also see Microsoft software compatibility page.

There is native support for the Tecra 730XCDT in 'Windows 2000' under BIOS v 6.50. This ease of installation can be compared with the installation of Microsoft's 'NT4' where there are many steps to make before it could be installed on Tecra computers. This is a great step forward and it shows the close collaboration between Microsoft and Toshiba to produce this result. 

The following sites provide information that can help you run 'Windows 2000 Professional' on the Tecra 730XCDT computer:

(a) The Toshiba-USA web site, Toshiba-Canada web site and Toshiba-Australia web-site, which have downloadable copies of all files and drivers for Toshiba computers. You can select a Toshiba product, family and model to be taken to the relevant web site with current drivers.
(b) The 'Toshiba portable computer' forum and 'Toshiba Windows 2000' forum on CompuServe (enter a screen name and password) are also places to download files. These forums provides technical support for Toshiba notebook computers by helpful volunteer who can call on the help of TAIS, the professional Toshiba team in the States.
(c) John Saville's NT 'FAQ', which provides the answers to many general questions about 'Windows 2000 Professional'.
(d) I have other suggestions of where to get software and help installing and running 'Windows 2000 Professional'.

Before starting the installation of 'Windows 2000 Professional', it is best to become familiar with the available ways to control how the computer BIOS can be viewed and altered. You will have to do this quite often if you run 'Windows 2000 Professional' . You can view and alter the BIOS settings either by

(a) press 'Esc' repeatedly then 'F1' when prompted, when the machine first starts, or
(b) boot the computer with the DOS diskette and run the 'tsetup.exe' program. If you set a 'boot' password, I recommend that you make a 'password Service Disk' as described after setting the password.
(c) opening a DOS shell and type 'tsetup.exe'.

Further details of ways to alter the settings, install CardStation and DeskStation devices are available in my earlier guide to installing NT 4 on the Tecra 740XCDT.

BIOS v 6.50

You can select a Toshiba product, family and model to be taken to the relevant web site with current BIOS and drivers.
First download the Tecra 730 BIOS v 6.50 to your computer, then install it as follows: Insert a formatted 1.44MB floppy diskette into the A: floppy drive. Open an MS-DOS command prompt Window and type the name of this package followed by 'a:'
    F4002287.exe a:
This creates a bootable diskette. Reboot the computer from the diskette to start the BIOS update process which will complete automatically.

Installation of 'Windows 2000 Professional'

Several people, myself included, recomend that the installation of 'Windows 2000' should be done to a 'clean' hard disk. I do not recommend that you 'update' your current operating system. You should keep copies of your computer's current resources and user files that you want to use under the new operating system, such as the 'Outlook' address book and *.wab files.  In addition, you may want to make a complete backup of the computer before you start to format the hard disk and replace the operating system.

The Tecra 730XCDT cannot boot from a bootable CD-ROM. For this reason I made four Windows 2000 'Setup Disks' from the 'Windows 2000 Professional' CD. The procedure to make them is to start-up an operating system on any computer, insert the 'Windows 2000 Professional' CD, start a command session (command.com or cmd.exe if NT), move to the CD's BOODISK folder then type the command 'makeboot a:'. You will have to insert 4 disks. After I had made these four diskettes, I put the first 'Setup disk' disk in the floppy drive of the Tecra 730XCDTand restarted the computer. The software inspected the computer and loaded files from the four disks.

After the four disks were read, it said 'Setup is starting Windows 2000. I selected 'setup Windows 2000 now' (Return) from three options; The Windows 2000 licensing agreement appeared. I pressed F8 to agree. It said 'Searching for previous versions of Windows NT'. It found the old version of NT, which I had installed on this computer, and two partitions. I pressed 'D' then 'Enter' to delete the first then the second partition. I selected the second option 'To create a partition in the unpartitioned space'. I pressed 'C' 'Enter' and it created a 4887 MB partition. It formatted the partition when I pressed 'Enter' using the NTFS file system. It took 23 minutes to format the disk and transfer software.

It rebooted and I removed the floppy disk. It said 'please wait' and accessed the CD-ROM. The network card had its lights on, showing that it was recognized. It setup and installed devices to the computer. It installed the keyboard and mouse. It said that this would talk several minutes. A progress bar was provided during the next 9 minutes. It asked for Regional settings: I customized it for English (UK). This set the keyboard for UK too. I 'Personalized' the software and gave it a computer name. I set an Administrator's password. I set the date, time and timezone. It then set up the network settings. The 'typical settings' had client for Microsoft networks, File and print sharing, and TCP/IP with automatic addressing. I close 'Custom settings'. It had found the DE650 ethernet PC-card, file, printer sharing, TCP/IP, and local network connections. I selected to install NetBEUI. I entered the IP address, DNS servers but not a WINS server. I selected 'No this computer is not on a network….' and put the name in the Workgroup box. It then installed the network components from the CD of Windows 2000, which I had found. I waited while Setup 'installs the Start menu items, register components, saves settings and removes any temporary files used'. This took several minutes. Then it asked me to remove the CD from the drive and restarted. It started the 'Welcome to the Network Identification Wizard'. I selected 'Users must use a username and password to log into the computer. I logged on as Administrator and my desktop started. This was in a 640 x 480 pixels. I right clicked on the desktop, set it to 1024 x 768 and 'smoothed' the fonts.

Windows 2000 recovery console

As a security measure, I then installed the 'Windows 2000 recovery console', which enables an Administrator to gain access to a 'Windows 2000' system from a command session to replace damaged files and to disable or enable services. When installed it adds an option to the Windows 2000 start menu.

To install it, perform the following. Boot into Windows 2000. Insert the installation CD. From a command prompt move to the I386 directory and type:

    C:\> winnt32 /cmdcons

A dialog will be displayed asking for confirmation. Click 'Yes'. File will be copied to the computer and an extra item added to the boot menu. C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Command Console" /cmdcons. A completion message will be displayed. Click 'OK'. Rebooting the computer will enable the option "Microsoft Windows 2000 Command Console" to be selected and start Windows 2000 in command mode. You will be asked which 2000 installation to repair and the Administrator password, if you need to use it. Once you have entered the password you will be able to enter a number of commands such as DISABLE to disable a service, DISKPART to create and remove partitions and many others. Just type HELP for a list of all commands. It is also possible to activate the console directory from the installation CD by booting off of the CD (if you motherboard supports CD booting), select Repair and press C to repair using the console. If you have renamed the Administrator account the console will still work however deleting the Administrator account will render the console inoperative. The Recovery Console does have some security built-in and you can only access the root of the system driver and the %systemroot% directory and its sub-directories.

Some of the most useful commands are

Dialup networking

'Windows 2000' had installed automatically two modems which I had in the computer and in the PC-card slot. I set up my dialup and email accounts for the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that I use. I used the PC-card modem to dial and access the internet service providers that I use. This worked the first time that I tried it. 

Application software

I installed a range of software that I use, including 

IntelliPoint v 3.1 mouse driver

I installed the Microsoft wheel mouse with 'IntelliEye' mouse driver.

CardStation

When I put the computer onto the CardStation and started the operating system the computer 'added new hardware' automatically and I rebooted. It now recognized this resource.

DeskStation issues

When I put the computer on the DeskStation, new hardware was found by the operating system. Unfortunately there was a serious problem then, caused by the presence of a 4-GB EIDE disk in the DeskStation IDE bay. Although Windows 2000 found the hard disk and installed new hardware, it forced a reboot and I was not able to login thereafter. The error message was 'Limited Virtual  Memory: Your system has no paging file, or the paging file is too small.' It explained how to provide a paging file by right clicking on My Computer | Properties| Advanced | Performance | Change | Drive selected | Add initial size or increase the size | Set | OK'. However as I was not able to login, this advice could not be followed. I deduced that the 'Pagefile' had been deleted from C: I was not able to find a way to put a new Pagefile on C:, without being logged in. I decided that the best way to sort out the problem that I could not login to the computer after installing the DeskStation EIDE drive was to replace the 'Windows 2000' installation with a new installation, so that a new Pagefile would be created. Fortunately this did not affect other applications that were already installed. I did this installation from the 'Windows 2000 Professional' CD in the same way that I had installed it initially: I started up the computer with the four 'setup boot' diskettes. I selected 'Setup Windows | F8 | Searching for previous versions | Repair'. This spent sometime creating files and deleting others. It copied lots of files to the 'installation folders'. After about 30 minutes, it restarted and read more files from the CD. I was then able to login to my account that was still present. An easier way to deal with the problem was described in an email to me: The issue is discussed in a Microsoft support article. Boot the computer with a DOS diskette and type 'FDISK /MBR' to create a new 'boot record'. Then, reboot the computer and the 'new' disk will be found and the operating system will start.

Customizing the MMC in Windows NT

Many 'Windows 2000 'utilities such as Internet Information Server and the BackOffice Resource Kit now use the Microsoft Management Console (MMC). In addition, many of the BackOffice products such as SQL Server and the upcoming Windows 2000 use the MMC as their user interface. One of the wonderful things about the MMC is that it enables you to snap in utilities as part of its interface so that you can manage a variety of services within the console. For example, you can add the Internet Information Server, Transaction Server, Index Server, and BackOffice Resource Kit snap-ins to the MMC for SQL Server. By default, however, some MMCs such as SQL Server Enterprise Manager open in user mode rather than author mode--which means you cannot snap in utilities in the MMC. To switch an MMC to author mode, choose Console | Options to display the Options dialog box. Check Always Open Console Files In Author Mode, and then click OK. Close the MMC and then reopen it (so that it's now in author mode). To add a snap-in to the MMC, choose Console | Add/Remove Snap-In. In the Add/Remove Snap-In dialog box, click Add. You should now see a list of available tools for snap in (this list will vary based on the utilities you have installed on your server). Select the snap-in you want to include in your MMC, and then click Add. (You will have to select each snap-in individually and click Add-- you can't select a list of snap-ins to add to the MMC.) When you are done, click close and then OK. You should now see all of your snap-ins displayed in the console tree. Once you have customized an MMC, you should choose Console | Save to save the console--otherwise you will have to re-add the snap-in utilities the next time you start it.

Toshiba utilities

I copied from the diskette that I had made when I first got the computer, the configuration files, including 'tsetup.exe' to the Tecra.

Windows 2000 updates

Windows Service Pack 3 should be installed when convenient. I suggest that you install it from a networked drive and do not save the updated files, to conserve space on the limited hard disk. I have installed it on my Tecra 730XCDT successfully and without subsequent problems. It is also advisable to run 'Windows Update' regularly, to check for security fixes and software updates, which should be installed when available.

Online Registration of 'Windows 2000 Professional'

I ran 'Start | Run | regwiz /r'. I entered my data but not the hardware information and was told the product identification number to use for support calls.

'Windows 2000 Professional' Resource Kit

Microsoft has details of the 'Windows 2000 Professional' Resource Kit. It has a number of programs to help in administering 'Windows 2000'.

If you have any corrections or additions to make to this document, please mail them to me, Christopher Spry. Please note that all standard exclusions and waivers apply to this guide and that all Trademarks and Copyrights are fully acknowledged.

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