To make the boot disks:
Making the boot disks is easy. You do not have to make them on the machine you are installing NT on, in fact, usually that is the case because the new machine does not have any OS on it.
From DOS:
All you need to be able to do is be able to go to the \i386 directory on the NT CD-ROM. The DOS can be just MS-DOS, or a dos box in Windows 3.x or 95.
c:\> d:
where d: is your CD-ROM drive letter (yours may be different).
d:\> cd\i386
puts you in the \i386 directory. Now run winnt /ox
d:\i386> winnt /ox
The setup starts, and asks you for the source directory, usually the one you are in so hit return. It then asks you for 3 formatted blank high-density 1.44 Mb disks. The first one you put in will be disk 3. Hit return. Setup writes and then checks each file to the boot disk. When done, it asks you for another disk, this will be disk 2, and then disk 1. The reason it works backwards is so that if you are installing NT on that machine, you can just reboot and it will boot off of disk one - already in the drive. Once the disks are made, label them and now you are ready to install NT!
From NT:
If you need to run this setup while running NT, either on the machine you are upgrading or on another NT machine, you need to run the 32-bit version of winnt, called winnt32. You can just go to the run command on the start menu, and type in:
d:\i386\winnt32 /ox
where d: is your CD-ROM drive letter (yours may be different).
The setup starts, and asks you for the source directory, usually the one you are in so hit return. It then asks you for 3 formatted blank high-density 1.44 Mb disks. The first one you put in will be disk 3. Hit return. Setup writes and then checks each file to the boot disk. When done, it asks you for another disk, this will be disk 2, and then disk 1. The reason it works backwards is so that if you are installing NT on that machine, you can just reboot and it will boot off of disk one - already in the drive. Once the disks are made, label them and now you are ready to install NT!
There are many other install options. Here is the list obtained from winnt /? (or winnt32 /?):
Winnt32
Performs an installation or upgrade of Windows NT 4.00.
winnt32 [/s:sourcepath] [/i:inf_file] [/t:drive_letter] [/x] [/b] [/ox] [/u[:script]
[/r:directory] [/e:command]
Parameters
/s:sourcepath
Specifies the location of the Windows NT files.
/i:inf_file
Specifies the filename (no path) of the setup information file. The default is DOSNET.INF.
/t:drive_letter
Forces Setup to place temporary files on the specified drive.
/x
Prevents Setup from creating Setup boot floppies. Use this when you already have Setup
boot floppies (from your administrator, for example).
/b
Causes the boot files to be loaded on the system's hard drive rather than on floppy disks,
so that floppy disks do not need to be loaded or removed by the user.
/ox
Specifies that Setup create boot floppies for CD-ROM installation.
/u
Upgrades your previous version of Windows NT in unattended mode. All user settings
are taken from the previous installation, requiring no user intervention during Setup.
/u:script
Similar to previous, but provides a script file for user settings rather than using the
settings from the previous installation.
/r:directory
Installs an additional directory within the directory tree where the Windows NT files
are installed. Use additional
/r switches to install additional directories.
/e:command
Instructs Setup to execute a specific command after installation is complete.
The most useful command other than the /ox is the /b, this writes the boot files to the hard drive, the same as the disks, but quicker because you don't have to change disks and the hard disk is always faster.