Well i'm sure there is a way to do it if you fork through the registry or use a program like X-Setup which allows the renaming of system folders. But, i highly dont recomend it. Unless its absolutely necessary, renaming WINNT is asking for trouble. I dont see how renaiming it is worth the future problems like system files installing into the wrong folders or unexplainable micrsoft "errors". And, i doubt you will be able to cut and paste everything out of WINNT while windows is running since most files are in use. All i say is, if aint broke, dont try to fix it.

The option during install is present, you just need to select "I want to choose the installation partition during setup or something similar and you can modify the default WINNT folder. I believe you get this if you install clean from Windows 9x for a dual boot.

The work to rename the folder would be far too big to be worth it. Not only do you need to fork through the registry, but you'd also need to fork through every shortcut, many program settings, enviroment variables that are re-written to the registry etc. My advice is - don't even think about it. Ther option to rename is there during setup, just like pmisty says.
 
BTW, why do you wan't to do it in the first place - why do you care so much what your sys directory is called? Let me guess, you want to multi boot W2K ? Its better to do that from different partitions.
 
H.

I'm a maverick & I've always changed the name of the Windows directory with past MS OS that I've used.

So install windows to c:\maverick and be happy
 
H.

I usually prefer something a little more conservative like WIN_98 or WIN_2000. If I could find an easy way I'd do it, but Uncle Bill makes it hard with W2k.

To be honest with you I can't see the point in renaming the system directory. If it is WINNT can't you really see that you have a NT-based OS, that is NT4 or 2000 ? (I don't think somebody is still using NT 3.xx) and i've never seen anybody with NT4 and 2K running on the same machine). You must change it only if you don't know what kind of Windows you have. In this case, hm...

I've managed to run Win2k out of C:\WINDOWS for quite some time.
 
The way I've found requires a reinstall but it works.
 
First you install some other version of windows, and then you start the installation of Win2k from this running version of windows and choose to do a fresh install. In this way the Win2k installation detects another windows version and you get the choice of directory, but do yourself a favor and install in another directory than the one you already have an earlier windows in if you want to be able to remove the "old" windows.