Win31Upgrade Switch May Not Work Properly During Unattended Setup

ID: Q169037

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows NT Workstation version 4.0

SYMPTOMS

During an unattended installation of Windows NT 4.0 with the Win31upgrade= option set to 1, Windows NT 4.0 may still prompt you with the following dialog box:

Setup has found a previous version of Microsoft Windows in the directory you have chosen for installing Microsoft Windows NT. Setup recommends installing into this directory since Microsoft Windows NT can interoperate with the previous version of Windows.
To install Windows NT in the same directory, press ENTER.

To select a different directory for Windows NT, press ESC.

This dialog box should only appear if the Win31upgrade= entry is set to 0.

CAUSE

This problem can occur if the path statement in the Autoexec.bat does not contain an entry for the directory that is being upgraded.

RESOLUTION

Make sure the directory that is being upgraded is included in the path statement in the Autoexec.bat file of the boot drive.

MORE INFORMATION

During an unattended installation with the Win31upgrade=1 switch set, setup parses the Autoexec.bat file for the path environment variable. This parsing occurs after the first restart and if the path entry does not contain a valid path to the Windows directory that is being upgraded, the above condition occurs.

For additional information on Windows NT 4.0 deployment/unattended installation consult the Microsoft Knowledge Base at http://www.microsoft.com/kb and download the Windows NT 4.0 Deployment Guide from http://www.microsoft.com/ntworkstation.

NOTE: The Deployment Guide is valid for both Windows NT Workstation and Windows NT Server.

Additional query words: prodnt


Keywords          : kbsetup ntsetup ntreskit NTWkst 
Version           : WinNT:4.0
Platform          : winnt 
Issue type        : kbprb

Last Reviewed: February 18, 1999