Fit Win98SE installer to 100 MB ZIP drive, final installation size doesn't matter (more features better)

[ruthan]

Hi,
i googled how to start Win98SE from ZIP drive, i expected that i will find a lot of tutorials, how to do it, but i found almost nothing. Maybe not right keywords.. Because some classical problem with half dead CD-ROM / floppy drives, boot from USB is not working, Plop bootloader mean additional drive and floppy and cdrom swapping or very user unfriendly, not straight forward hdd bootloader.

    ZIP or 250, 750 MB are hard to get. Otherwise at least ZIP 100 USB, is still working within WIndows 10 64bit up to date.

I found some minimal installation projects, its something different, i care only about installer size, but more useful features in target disc -=> better.

 I have tried to make some install with helping of chatgpt and help, i was sort of fun, chatgpt was wrong in very 2nd statement as usually.

 My first try, meant like 4 ZIp driver swaps, i copies majority of from 1st Zip floppy and copied the rest on 2nd. Goal is get rid of the second one.

 Problem is that whole Win98 setup folder after some basic trimming has 130 MB, ZIP has like 95 or 100 MB. I also like to have ZIP bootable with full Dos 7.1 and most of dos drivers and tools, its additional 20 MB, if it would be possible => 75 MB version would be very nice.

  And big question is what i can remove, or how make number of floppy swaps minimal.. and if possible make some tutorial or script which would help to create ZIP friendly installer.

  I tried way:
Select all Base*.cab - 2 MB
Keep all Drivers .cab - 16 MB
Net *.cab - Net 7- to 10 - 5 MB
Precopy.cab - 2.7 MB
Minicab - 0.7 MB
WIN98_OL.CAB - 1.7 MB
WIN98_XX.CAB // Its starting on 21, i could add them up to 46.. size of one is 1.7 MB - to 26x 1.7 MB - 44 MB
  So i could not fit to image these:
Win98_47.cab to WIn98_74.CAB

   -----------

Not working networking

- Its just some side effect, i installed nimimal version, not any optimal feature selected in installation wizard, network card was not detected, no drivers packaged on CD.
 I wanted to install network stack later, i added realtek 8139/8100 NIC drivers and TCP / IP / IPX, Microsoft Network client later.
     All installed to exclamation marks, errors, login window with screen icon as indicator, but networking was not working.

        When i tried ping or telnet i got error - unknow commands. I remove whole stack reinstalled it, but never was asked or saw copying or requesting common tools
like protman, arp.exe (i know i probably butchered names, i refuse to remember such things) and similar files script, in dialog. There was not even ICMP.dll, which is required by ping.

    I searched optimal features, but there not nothing like networking stack, some management tool, hyper terminal etc.. Still not ping.
I searched CD image there are such files inside Net*.cabs.. there are normally copied during installation.. but not this time and even messing with optimal features 

and removing / adding whole network start, did not made trick, it looks like that there is some filelist created during installation and when some files are not available system behave 

like these package are not existing. When i copied ping manually, i was complaining about ICMP.dll utility which was also not installed.

I could be wrong but these tools seems not be in Dial up package.

----------

When i started installation from live system and CD within, after end of process networking worked fine and at least some files/ command where availabl,networking is working fine.

I would understand, if i would not install networking stack would not be on ZIP media, but im quite so that it was.

Edited December 23, 2024 by ruthan

[j7n]

I think you can install Win98 after booting into DOS from a floppy or similar and running oemsetup.exe located on the hard disk along with its files.

[ruthan]

Yeah that is possible too, but with his im trying different approach, to be able to install it into clean hdd with as many steps as possible.

  My memory is a bit blurry if you have to partition hdd before installation, or you can partition hdd within installer. Its not problem boot form ZIP driver, with fully configure Dos enviroment (1.44 HDD floppy is small a bit slow, on ZIp driver i have full Dos 7.1 and big pack utils and drivers- that is using firsst 20 MB) a run fdisk and format from it too.
    There was even Win 98 floppy edition, 39 floppies so (39x1.44= ~60 MB), i was somehow trimmer.

   I dunno if installer is clever enough if you copy floppies on HDD / ZIP if it would detect next *.cab in same dirrectory without requiring some file pointing or stuborny require inserting net floppy.

   Yesterday i found some Win98 floppy installation video, at the end is comparison of CD and Floppy version available utilities:

- know that was floppy version of Win95, but i was unsure about WIn98.

   To be more technical, i wonder if someone tried to trim installer, or found some filelist which with some order of required files (or *.cab) and which are mandatory and which are optimal.. 
At eatleast when if just with 1 ZIP media replacement, would be much better than have to switching zips, multiple times.

  Other method would be just remove not neccesary files like themes, images, sounds and enable some auto skip of missing not mandatory files.
  Remove really obsolute drivers if they not mandatory, its should be possible too. Or even remove not obsolete drivers, so trim installation size.. in order that user can install them after OS installation is done.

Edited December 24, 2024 by ruthan

[jumper]

I now always install from HDD. I boot from CD (or floppy), prep the HDD, then copy the setup folder from the CD to the HDD. Win 98 is 105MB, Win 98se is 121MB. These can probably be reduced.

If you repackage the .cab files as uncompressed, you should be able to recompress the whole .cab set as a much smaller self-extracting 7zip or Winrar .exe. That plus the contents of a modified EBD could then fit on a bootable 100MB zip drive.

 

[ruthan]

I have tried this way, its no go.. 7zip - 7z or zip max compression is ignoring cabs.. When extracted all cabs - which im not sure if supported by installer and repackages them again.. I was able on second disk data get from 50 MB to 45 MB, so only 10% removed. So this is not way. I seems that used compression is pretty good, especially for year 1998..

   If it would work yes i can add on zip some partitioning tools like fdisk do partition and formatting and after copy files.. And if use 2 zip media i can after avoid zip media switching, but it could be done with some deeper data knowledge too, but need to unpack and copy files. 

    So it would really need some deeper knowledge. 

   I have some old minimal CD image thread, but it seems that links are dead:

   Best what i could find is this:
https://www.litepc.com/98micro.html

  Not its not mainly about installer size, but about install size.. and its possible only with 98lite Profesional, which is still paid SW:

https://www.litepc.com/98lite.html

Edited January 1 by ruthan