Windows 98 on CD

The chimera, the unified field theory, Heidi Klum, Windows that runs from a CD, the history of humanity is filled with unreachable dreams and goals which have driven even the most ingenuous of men to insanity.  The ancient Greeks, David Spade and Einstein all fell short in the quest for their dreams – perhaps merely for the difficulty of the task. Surely someone told them it couldn’t be done – but that didn’t stop them from trying. Especially Spade. . .

            Such is also the story with various attempts to run windows from a CD. RUN windows – not install it nor simply boot it from a CD.  Those things are easy – mere child’s play.  Sure, some have provided solutions like Windows PE (an MS product based on windows xp professional which provides a gui with a command line interpreter).  Two other companies have promised similar products: Qualsystem is one, yet in real world usage, it seems that it just doesn’t deliver quite as promised: in the end, it is primarily a backup utility, and some users complain of less functionality and compatibility than that which is promised.  Stealthlogon made a similar affirmation to deliver a windows on CD product, but strangely, all traces of this company have disappeared.  And a german tech magazine, C’T , back in 99 made an article about how to do it – although they did not address many issues which prevent any real usage of the CD produced, especially 2: 1) what good is it if you have to click through error messages throughout your windows session?  2) if a large number of system utilites crash the system because of certain INT calls that haven’t been dealt with, is it really worth it to devote the time to setting the system up?

Nevertheless, the mystic quest for a functional installation of windows on CD is neither as difficult as Einstein’s task of the UFT nor as David Spade’s hopes to bring a supermodel home to meet the parents.  And apparently it does not require genius, any complex mathematical equations or the like.  With a little work, and following the directions, you can make it work.  And if you’re willing to fork over a little cash in able to use Shane Brook’s 98lite professional version, you can create a CD which can be cut down to credit card size and, depending on your choice of programs, could run on less than 64 MB of RAM.

Objectives:

This tutorial, and the underlying project, has had numerous objectives, but a few are of prime importance.

1)      Produce a system which RUNS Windows98 from a cd. This is not the same as merely booting it.  It has to be functional, and without abnormal error messages.

2)      A 50MB limit for the CD image. I have aimed to produce a system which, like the KNOPPIX Linux Distro, can be placed on a credit card sized CD.  This naturally means that many good tools or other things cannot be added or used, such as Mozilla or Word97.  All of my recommended programs are based on size conceerns.

3)      It must run on a 128MB machine.  The installed files cannot therefore exceed around 110MB.

4)      The most freeware/GNU software possible.  Why recommend Miranda instead of Trillian? Simple, Miranda is GNU. Size, though, is usually more important than License agreements.

5)      As many tools as possible, on a decent looking system.  One of my unspoken objectives is a functionality similar to that of Damn Small Linux, but on a system which isn’t as ugly as Blackbox with those horrendous Linux fonts.  Linux geeks have a good tool in that system; (despite the underlying monopoly) I like Windows and I want a pretty, kewl os cd too!

BTW

I do not and will not provide an ISO for a few reasons, also. Here’s a few:

1)      EULA agreements with Microsoft (and a few others).  I follow the laws, whether I like them or not, and distributing Microsoft’s code without their permission is criminal, violating federal and international laws.

2)      HARDWARE DETECTION.  If you ran my ISO, you would curse me for the time it takes to detect your system. If YOU make your own system, you don’t have this problem

3)      BANDWIDTH.  No site which I maintain could stand up to the requirement.

4)      . . . . .