My end aid is to provent windows from writing data to my C: drive, for it is a FLASH disk which can't be written for too many times and too often.I have disabled swap file(virture memory),but i can't provent windows from writing to registry (system.dat and user.dat)and the IE temp directory or history records. I attempted to move a "Most mini" win98(Less than 100M) installed in drive C: to a RAMDISK (Created by XMSDSK before windows was started, 128M),copy windows and other needed files/directories to the RAMDISK and then start win98 from the RAMDISK. I tried XMSDSK, DOSLFN and LetAssig( together ).My AUTOEXEC.BAT looks below: @echo off c:\dos\XMSDSK 128000 /t /y F: c:\dos\DOSLFN MD F:\Windows XCOPY c:\windows f:\windows /s COPY autoexec.bat f:\ c:\dos\LetAssig f=c: win But after running "XCOPY c:\windows f:\windows /s", all the files on drive f: disappeared, only directory of f:\windows left when "DIR". If run "f:\>DIR windows\win",it listed win.ini only, and "f:\>DIR windows\win.com", the file win.com should be listed, but can't be found to run, DOS reported "Bad command or file name". The space were used, and if I start win98 without switch to the RAMDISK, the copied files can be seen in windows' explore. There is no relationship with DOSLFN. Could anyone help me, or there is another way? Thank you! Best regards. tsyejay tsyejay@163.com

If you copy windows from c: to a F: (for example) ram disk, windows will not run from F: because all the Registry entries reference C:.

tsyejay, I am going to bed and am not ready for a brain teaser like this. So: change your name to something I can pronounce please win98 cannot boot from a drive that is not writeable, which you have apparently figured out already the dat files are the enemy, those other directories are not a problem this is a worthy project you are on. I hope you figure it out.

Thanks for George and Johnoh! My name should be pronounced ['tsai 'd3ei], I am from China, "Cai Jie" if spelled in Chinese. The real problem now is the DISAPPEARANCE of the files copied from "ORIGINAL drive C:" to "ORIGINAL drive F:", that perhaps a bug of XMSDSK.exe. If all works comfortable, the "ORIGINAL drive C:" should be "drive F:" and the "ORIGINAL drive F:" should be "drive C:" after LetAssig.exe had run, so Win98 is started from drive C: and this drive is writable because now the drive C: is in fact the RAMDISK. If there is any other RAM disk driver( capacity can be larger than ramdisk.sys from ms does), that is just what I need. regards tsyejay tsyejay@163.com

I recall someone posting instructions or a link to instructions on this site about how to run windows mostly from a ram disk. But like johnoh I'm to tired to try to find it tonight. Maybe Mesich can find it. He has links to everything.

Now that I think about it, that link might have been to a microsoft support page.

Have a look here. This is 98 from CD. It does work. I have a CD here that works - nut it took me 3 goes. It does take a bit of figuring out, as a couple of points seem to be diferent to what is listed on the website. Chappie http://www.heise.de/ct/english/99/11/206/