Put an OS on a ramdrive?

[reboot]

I'm just trying to figure a way to get ME installed on a ramdrive.
I figure I can install it on a HD, then have the autoexec copy the contents of the HD to the ramdrive on bootup, then actually switch to the ramdrive to load the OS.
Then I'd like to have the contents of the ramdrive overwrite the one on the HD every shutdown.
Anyone have any good ideas on how to write the .bat for this?
Maybe editing the msdos.sys file to specify the correct %winbootdir%.
I'll have to make a permanent swap on a HD, but I figure actually running the OS from the ramdrive may show some eye bleeding speed.

[glc]

I dunno if you can do this - it's my impression that the maximum size of a ramdrive is 32 megs.......ME ain't gonna fit in that.

[reboot]

OK, how about a bare Win95 or 98?

[hackercarlos]

reboot. I think that a bare Win 95 is about 80 megs or 85

[reboot]

OK, how about a basic DOS 6.22 install?
Geez, this is just an exercise in brain drain.
I (obviously) don't need the WHOLE thing on the ramdrive (Program files, etc...), just enough of bare Windows to run (explorer, systray, startup items...), and it will have to be installed on an HD first ANYHOW, so...do you think any Win9x/ME OS could be installed on a HD, then portions of it moved to a ramdrive and then continue to boot from there?
You simply can't install the OS to the ramdrive, there's no way to keep the "boot sector" active after a restart, DUH!
What would you select to move to the ramdrive?
How would YOU write the .bat lines to move what you selected?

[HAL9000]

Dok had made a bootable floppy disk of Windows 3.1. That would work. I was playing with increasing the size of the ramdrive and had it up to about 24Mb before I lost the disk. Maybe he still has that around somewhere.

[Toaster]

The biggest drawbacks to a ram drive are size and the fact that it wont tolerate a reboot. The size limit of 32MB is a big drawback. In the days of dos/windows, a ram drive would work so long as the user loaded the ramdrive on start-up.
I seem to remember a software proggie that exceeded the 32MB limit but i`ll have to search it out and see.
Remember, a ram-drives contents are erased on reboots or resets.

[M. A. Dockter]

I have the DISK image at home...need a 386+ with 8M+ RAM. Can e-mail image and disk image writter for Win2K/WIn9x to you if you want boot...

[reboot]

Yes, I know about the limitations toaster. I've got a 3rd party ramdrive proggy that will set it up at 100MB if I want.
What I still need to know, is how to write windows to the ramdrive on startup, boot from the ramdrive, continue running from there, and automatically saving all changes on shutdown.

[bob]

I think that the OS is already running in memory.

[reboot]

I give up.
Maybe I'm not explaining it right.
I want to start the boot from the C drive with the OS on it.
I want to MOVE whatever is necessary to the ramdrive, THEN load the OS from there.
The boot time will be slow (moving stuff), but I still think that everything else would be faster.

[Toaster]

I see where you are going with this `Boot but I fail to understand how helpful it would be. You still have to copy data to the ram drive on start-up. Otherwise a "bat" file could hand off the task of booting. Micky$oft O/S`s tend to be "temp" aware and may not permit it. Still you may not have enough room on the ram drive. Then the fact of moving data to the ram drive with xcopy32 and then a restart.
What iv`e done in the dos/windows days was...

***batfile**
format d:/s
xcopy c:\*.*/s d:\
set comspec= d:\command.com
set temp=d:\tmp


Something akin to this *may* be adapted to Micky$oft winderz. The remaining option is a battery backed ram drive utilizing physical memory. They are no doubt hard to find but prolly still available. These may only offer slightly better performance then a high end HDD due to bus constraints.

[reboot]

For anyone who may still be following this, I found it!
I've been working on this for over a week, and now have the setup I want.
It requires exporting the registry to the c:\ root folder, and renaming it virtual.reg and making a folder on C: called "tools" and running the two progs from their respective folders under c:\tools\ (just follow the code below, and you'll see.)
You MUST HAVE at least 256Meg of RAM for this to work.
I had to download a 3rd party ramdrive prog (xmsdsk), to get a ramdrive the size I needed, and a 3rd party LFN DOS prog (4dos), but here's the lines I added to autoexec.bat for it to all work:

choice /cyn/tn,10 Windows On RAM ?
REM you may enter other choices too
if errorlevel 2 goto OVER

c:\tools\xmsdsk\xmsdsk /t /y 300000 v:
REM assuming a ramdisk, if not, just rem out the line
md v:\windows
c:\windows\regedit /c c:\virtual.reg
copy %winbootdir%\win.com v:\windows
copy %winbootdir%\system.ini v:\windows
xcopy %winbootdir%\system\*.* v:\windows\system\
xcopy %winbootdir%\system\vmm32\*.* v:\windows\system\vmm32\
xcopy %winbootdir%\system\iosubsys\*.* v:\windows\system\iosubsys\
REM this allows already LFN support on winstart
REM one should assign the swap-file already to somewhere else in advance
if exist %winbootdir%\win386.swp del %winbootdir%\win386.swp
path=v:\windows;v:\windows\command;c:\tools\4dos
REM for another hdd install just drag and drop the whole thing once and skip the winstart.bat operations
REM one can copy also a ready made winstart.bat from somwhere
echo c:\tools\4dos\4dos.com /c copy /s /u /k /h %winbootdir%\*.* v:\windows\ > v:\windows\winstart.bat
echo del v:\windows\system\*~?.* >> v:\windows\winstart.bat
set winbootdir=v:\windows
%winbootdir%\win

:OVER
c:\windows\regedit /c c:\standard.reg

[reboot]

Addendum to above:
I can only get to safe mode. Seems I have a bunch of bad stuff in my reg that's screwing it up.
Had to resize the ramdrive to 200 meg (change the 300000 to read 200000 in the .bat) as well.
Also you MUST export the registry, change ALL instances of c:\\windows to read v:\\windows THEN save it as virtual.reg (note the double \\ !!!!!!!!)
I'm going to try this from another HD with a CLEAN fresh install of 98, then maybe ME as well.
I'll get back later with updates.

[reboot]

NOW I have it.
Finally got an acceptable version working on a ramdrive.
I haven't got ALL the bugs worked out, but it does work.
Look for an upcoming article on it, or email me for the .bat
I still can't figure out why it works perfectly the first time, but causes a system crash upon restart.

[mosquito]

hehe, cool, remembers me of the old days when I was playing Wolf3D copied in Ramdrive.

Those were the days.

Let's see if I can find the floppies with Wolf3D on it. I wonder what it looks like on a PIII 800.

[reboot]

Update: Bug Free version finally
Should be an article popping up soon.