XP on 128mb CF?

[mb2]

i thought microwinX might be possible to run on a 128MB CF card.. but <50 MB claims seem to be totally irrelevant to real-world useage.. excluding the lastgood directory which AFAICT is required, and many times bigger than 50MB.. unless i'm doing something wrong?

windows 2000 would be perfectly fine too.. but there dont seem to be many minimization projects based on them?..

basically i need LAN support, GUI (w/ adjustable res) and ability to run a few basic programs (portable versions better?)

any chance?

or if not, whats the min ur looking at..?

edit:... actually i think i got rid of lastgood? .. but system32 is still 222MB ? .. its not meant to be that is it?.. i've ran the shrinking thing..

(PS: using VMware...

also is there any way to get files from ur normal OS HDD onto the fake VMware one?)

Edited June 5, 2006 by mb2

[geo411m]

what i do to copy os into vmware is use Acronis True Image with Acronis Universal Restore then you can move your os image to any computer or vm.

[T D]

Or a norton ghost image.

[Kramy]

As far as I know MicroWinX is a program you run after nLiting. That means you have to install a large windows first, then run its Gutter program to shrink windows down. Looks like you're going to have to make an image of it to get onto that card. Oh, and be sure to use FAT32 for the windows install, since most memory cards don't support NTFS.

Memory cards are pretty cheap now. Maybe you can get a larger one?

http://www.newegg.com/ProductSort/Category.asp?Category=17

[dirtwarrior]

MP3 Car forum has tutorial on putting an OS on CF

[mb2]

i realise that i'll have to make an image first, but that shouldn't be a problem.

and yeah.. CF cards aren't too expensive, but i dont really want to buy another, or waste this one.

so we've delt with the VM / image stuff.. (atleast until i try it, if it goes wrong lol).. how about the size? anyone have an XP (-all unnecessary program files*) thats <128MB, or close? or know its possible?

*i mean, including whatever u need for the shell, that sort of stuff, but not web browsers, image viewers etc.

[mb2]

so, i'd guess from the lack of responces that no one has got it ~128MB?

can anyone start me with a figure for the lowest they have?..

[acen2006]

I think one of the TINY XPs by eXPerience might be wot your looking for, I think that might be small enough.

I know some of these OS's have a very small foot print. Just do a torrent search for 1.

Iv got a link hold on!? :

http://www.bushtorrent.com/torrent.php?id=488751

This ones 112 mb :

http://www.bushtorrent.com/torrent.php?id=102608

And this one :

http://www.bushtorrent.com/torrent.php?id=414449

There is another but i think its been deleted.

Edited June 24, 2006 by acen2006

[mb2]

acen 2006.. those are the ISO sizes i think, and will result in considerably larger installed size. i tried one of the experience ones and i think it was ~300mb installed; not so impressive.

i think XP:deleted edition may just squeeze on (from what i can tell).. but now i'm not quite sure of the status of that project

[gdogg]

installing windows onto a 128MB CF is just unrealistic.

first your gonna need to install it, copy it to the CF flash card.

Then you need to setup EWF, and make the cf card read only.

Ill find what I know about EWF and post for you later.

Edited July 1, 2006 by gdogg

[jaclaz]

The "standard" reference for CF card XP installs and EWF is Sfiorito.

Search for post by him on the board and check his page:

http://osf1.gmu.edu/~sfiorito/eXPinstall.htm

and the MP3car forum:

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=70

jaclaz

[Camarade_Tux]

Really nice links jaclaz.

[Biohead]

Would this also work on other memory formats such as SD (As long as system supports booting from it?).

I don't have a CF reader - but I got a few SD cards lying around that I'd be willing to try this with.

[Clint]

installing windows onto a 128MB CF is just unrealistic.

first your gonna need to install it, copy it to the CF flash card.

Then you need to setup EWF, and make the cf card read only.

Ill find what I know about EWF and post for you later.

Actually it can be done, I'm doing a thing together with my friend over at XS.

We have left XP due to it's incapabilities with more cores and memory.

We are actually fitting a decent functional 2003 Enterprise on a 128MB stick....and I'm sure you know that 2003E means at least 30MB bigger size installed.

I guesstimate I could squeeze in XP on 90MB or so.

If you utilize SysPrep you can even paste a image on ANY hardware using Acronis or similar, it needs some fixing and doing but it can be done. (has been actually )

btw, nice going on your project...I admire your persistence

Edited July 3, 2006 by Clint

[mb2]

it just astonishes me the amount of code (ie disk space used) that is needed in modern OSes. windows 98 has been slimmed to significantly less than 20MB (down to ~7meg at the extremes), which still allows network, sound etc. basically 90% of the fundamental functionality of a basic system, just use 'portable' apps with it rather than installing them. yet no one , even with stuff like linux, is making systems that can run a GUI with less than 64/128MB of ram; 10x the entire OS. OSX and vista are several factors larger again. MenuetOS being a notable exception.

i have ran '98se on CF card, with all the main apps i need (obviously i have a HDD install/ Other PC too with the heavyweight programs), and had loads of space left. i also ran it in a ramdisk, (ironically giving me more space).. but that PC broke and my new one doesn't support 98 unfortunately.

gdogg; the size is the only real obstacle. you are probably going to need an image and copy it over (unlike 98), but EWF is not really necessary; if u don't keep a swap-file on the disk (ie disable it or put it on a ramdisk) and put all possible caches to ramdisk, or disable them, then the number of writes will be low-enough to do no damage to it. besides, most CF cards have 5 year, or even lifetime warranties anyway i haven't actually heard of any case of bad sectors occuring from too many writes anyway. i'd imagine it'd be better just to leave it out and save the space.. but i may use it.. your claims of /windows being 58MB did initially lead me to believe that it would therefore require 58MB of HDD space..

Biohead; i doubt it. atleast, it would be a lot harder. I have a CF>IDE adaptor, which plugs right into the IDE port and allows my CF to be seen as a regular IDE hard drive (They have the same pinout, just CF is smaller and has extra pins for power). If XP sees it as a removeable mass storage device, then its a lot harder; however i remember someone got XP to boot from USB, so probably the same would apply, and it could work. (unless your SD reader means windows sees your SD cards as hard drives.. in which case it would work fine... i'd doubt it thou)

Clint; you have 2K3 *working* on a 128MB stick? thats excellent news if so. i may move to 2K3 when vista becomes the dominant OS (assuming everything will require 'Vista / 2K3' due to the same codebase, as is now with XP/2K). any chance of a link to the XS thread?

i'm still in the single-core world and will be for a while, and less than 3GB if thats the memory thing ur refering to. thats not to say i wouldn't mind using 2K3E, although i haven't used it before and if XP is 30MB less is probably worth using for now, and as i said, even 2000 would be fine.

i wouldn't rule out using disc compression to get a bit more space; the shorter seeks of the CF would probably make it less noticeable, and i have plenty of CPU power for the tasks it'd handle. but i'd imagine implementing this before imaging could be tricky, and i wonder weather with such a small volume, keeping the files needed for compression would use more space than the actual compression would save?.. also having a compressed image on the CF which was unzipped to a ramdisk may be possible, but too difficult to be worth bothering with i think.

question> is it possible to boot XP from another OS (like how '98 booted from DOS).. i'm guessing a linux.. ? (if so, link? )

also its amazing how much u can get from just a couple of small apps; VLC and firefox/opera will open pretty much all video, audio and images between them.. or if u want to go hardcore; Offbyone and Quickview .. (actually i dont think the latter works after 9x..).