PC Hacks

Hack #88. Speed up Operating System Installation and Maintenance

Save yourself time by making Windows installation files available on your hard drive.

We know you've had this problem: you install a new mouse, change a network setting, do almost anything that upsets the delicate balance in Windows and you're prompted to insert the Windows so-and-so CD. Where is it? Did you grab the right one?

If you have a lot of free disk space (about 700 MB), take a cue from the major PC makers and copy the files from your Windows CD to your hard drive. In fact, it's not a bad idea to copy the files before you install Windows so the resulting installation automatically knows where to find the files later—thus no prompting to insert a CD later.

PC manufacturers have typically placed the Windows 95, 98, 98SE, and Me files in a C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS folder, and Windows NT, 2000 or XP files into C:\i386.

Warning

Before you do any of this, I suggest you load SMARTDRV [Hack #65] .

You can emulate this pattern for Windows 9x-Me by creating these folders on your hard drive from a DOS prompt, then copying the files from the CD (assuming this is drive D:) as follows, from the A:\> DOS prompt:

A:\>C:
C:\>MD WINDOWS C:\>MD
\WINDOWS\OPTIONS C:\>MD
\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS C:\>CD
\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS C:\
\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS>COPY
D:\WIN98\*.*

Start the Windows installation from this folder by typing:

C:\ \WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS>SETUP

Tip

If you feel that the WINDOWS folder is too vulnerable a place to put your Windows ...