leileilol wrote:There's 98Lite, and you could also use Program Manager for the shell if you really wanted to.
Those are great suggestions. I download 98lite 4.5 from here:
http://www.litepc.com/download.html
It is listed as a preview edition, but here is a quote from its site: "a free, feature rich, no-nags edition of 98lite to trial, or use for life." It is a DOS based program to modify the installation files and shrink the space required by 98SE.
I tried the preview version of lite98 and it is possible to disentangle IE from the OS to some extent and save 10mb; it would be also interesting to have the professional version and reduce the size of the OS to <40mb.
Using dd.exe and writing zeroes to free space on an image, it is possible to then compress the disk image to a very small space (probably <20mb for a 2gb image). This would only be advised after the 98 setup was stable since new drivers would be installed from the installation's CAB files.
Also, the Program Manager shell (progman.exe) worked perfectly. I did the following to install the shell from Windows 3.1:
1. Back up system first
2. Edit c:\windows\system.ini so that the Explorer shell is not active while Progman becomes the new shell:
[boot]
shell=;Explorer.exe
shell=progman.exe
This change can be reversed by removing the line with progman and then activating Explorer by removing the semi-colon.
Windows98SE now boots up even faster in Daum's build and I don't have the occasional error during start-up. It is simple to configure and I could even access the 3.1 file manager, Winfile, via its "Run" menu item. Winfile utilizes the shorter Dos based file names, but one could access Explorer instead. I found Winfile to be very light in memory use, fast, and stable.
Also, to accompany the Progman shell, run the msconfig tool, navigate to the "Startup" tab, and then find the check box for SystemTray, uncheck this box.
If TweakUI was installed via the unofficial service pack for 98, then navigate to the tab labelled "Boot", uncheck "Display splash screen while booting".
On Pentium Dual-Core, Daum/Win98 now boots in <5 seconds.
Edit: added systray, system boot hints; compression of disk image. Optionally, test using IEradicator2001 to remove elements of Internet Explorer; this is an alternative, though less effective, method to using lite98.