Smallest install size possible in Win95...

[Mini-Me]

Gidday everyone!
:)

I need to install a copy of Windows 95B from my authentic OEM CD, but want the install to be as small as possible.

I have already tried an install by unticking all accessories, and everything else in the options, and have got the install down to about 75-80MB, which is quite good.

Is there any more fat I can trim off here?

I need full access to network, so all the communications/network options are installed(ticked).

Screen is set to lowest-common-denominator; IE: VGA only, 16 colours - high definition is not required.

I only need a Windoze to access my home network.

Some of you are already wondering: "Why does he wanna do this?"

Well, I need to conserve as much HDD space as possible, as I am building a MP3 player for my car, using a laptop as the PC medium.

The MP3 player runs under DOS only(due to better stability then Windows on same hardware), but: (A) accessing a Windows network under DOS is a little bit of a pain(although it can be done...), and (B) the familiar Windows GUI would make transfer of files to the laptop visually easier.

SO - are there any tricks that I don't know about, that will allow me to get the install size smaller then what I have now???

BTW: Could use DOS 7.1, and Windows 3.11 for workgroups(I have an authentic copy of this also), but even though 3.11 works on a DOS 7.1 FAT32 drive like this, file-manager only reports 2GB of free space on the 20GB drive, so better all-round to go up to Win95B...

Thanks for any advise.
:)


MM.

[ErnieK]

Go here and download IE Eradicator to remove IE.
http://www.litepc.com/download.html

Once you uninstall IE you could install a browser with a smaller footprint. I have heard that this can save quite a bit of space.

[Paul Komski]

How is you swap file being managed and how much RAM do you have? It might be possible to run with a small fixed-size swapfile.

I'm pretty sure that you can configure the system so that files are deleted directly and don't go into the recycle bin, which would reduce any associated "bloat" there.

If you setup a RAM drive for the temp and temp internet files then these can never get out of hand either and of more relevance (the index.dat file cant grow either).

[Mini-Me]

- Will get IE Irradicator - thanks for link...
:)

- Will also check out the swapfile specs - this is a good idea, and I haden't thought of that!!!
:)

I remember now, that once(for a little experiment), I had a 500MB drive in a P100, and I put an old 100MB drive in as "D", and told windows to use the full capacity of this drive for all virtual memory.
Granted, an old 100MB drive would actually be slower as virtual memory then genuine RAM chips, but just for experimentation...
(wanted to see if this would reduce drive "C" access...)

This reduced DRASTICALLY the access strain placed on the main 500MB drive(much less access on this drive).
Actually, there was a slight performance INCREASE, as even though the older drives are much slower at data-transfer then new ones, with them working togeather like this, it worked O.K., actually...


MM.

[Mini-Me]

Hi all.
:)

Just a quick note here - got IE irradicator, and ran it, removing IE 5 from the install, and now the install is down to around 56MB - still with full network access.
:)

Me happy.


MM.