With your driver signing policies firmly in place, you are ready to move on to the next step in the hardware installation process: verifying hardware compatibility with Windows 2000. It may seem like a trivial matter given that most hardware is Plug and Play compatible, but it is still important to make sure that the hardware you want to place into your Windows 2000 computer is recognized by Microsoft as a Windows 2000 compatible device. Before you purchase new hardware (or attempt to install Windows 2000 on a new machine), you should take the time to ensure that it is compatible with Windows 2000. This can be done in one of two ways:
The Hardware Compatibility List (HCL)The Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) is Microsoft's published list of hardware components that have been fully tested with Windows 2000. Items that are listed in the HCL are guaranteed to function with Windows 2000. If you want to ensure that all your hardware components will function properly under Windows 2000, you should consult the current version of the HCL, which can be found on the Internet at http://www.microsoft.com/hcl/. Although thousands of products can be found on the HCL (meaning that the Microsoft WHQL has tested them and found them to function with Windows 2000), not every piece of hardware in existence is compatible. This is especially true if the hardware is either very old or very new. If the hardware manufacturer has a suitable Windows 2000 driver available for that device, it should function satisfactorily in Windows 2000. However, any future problems that you encounter with the device should be addressed to the hardware manufacturer, not Microsoft. Once you're at the HCL Web site, finding your hardware is a fairly simple process. You just need to know what type of hardware you're looking for, such as video adapters, and search on that. Alternatively, if you know a model number, such as Matrox G450, then you can search for that specifically .
Windows 2000 Readiness AnalyzerUsing the HCL is convenient for small amounts of hardware, but what do you do when you want to analyze the hardware contents of an entire computer? That's where the second method available to you comes into play. The Windows 2000 Readiness Analyzer , although arguably not as up-to-date as the HCL, can be used to determine the compatibility of hardware in an existing computer on which you want to install Windows 2000. The Windows 2000 Readiness Analyzer is run from the command prompt as follows :
The last major step to installing and configuring hardware devices in Windows 2000 is to actually install and configure the device. That is the topic of the next section. |