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Installed Windows 95 minimization by SQ

* Windows 95 minimized with docs 3.8M

Obligatory Disclaimer

AUTHOR OF THIS TEXT DOES NOT WARRANT OR MAKE ANY REPRESENTATIONS REGARDING THE USE OR THE RESULTS OF THE USE OF THIS TEXT OR ANY OTHER INFORMATION MENTIONED HEREWITH IN TERMS OF THEIR CORRECTNESS, ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, OR OTHERWISE.

You may follow instructions described here on your own risk.

This text's version history:

Preamble

History of MS-DOS comes to end. New age has begun with Windows 95. Age of expansive growth. More HDD space, more memory...

But sometimes we have to build working system under very strange conditions.


Of course - you know other OSes, that do it better.
Of course - there are special software to make it better.

But if you HAVE to use Win32 environment for at least two programs - you HAVE to enter the 'world of misunderstanding and undocumenting', built by Microsoft.

In tnis case, if you want to cut off unused things - do it.

I public results of my own experiments, because it was HARD job. Microsoft programs assume all files are always in their right places. We can't receive normal error message "File C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\... not found" from them. Programs hang, behave erronous, give you idiotic replies, simply do nothing. Many attempts. Every attempt - reboot. I hope, my results will decrease number of your reboots. ;-)

Installed Windows minimization. 7.4-8.5M summary file size

Pan-Europe version is choosen, because I don't like russian filenames. Minimized Win95 archive contains only 8.3 latin names for more compatibility, and creates only one directory (Start Menu) and one file (ShellIconCache) with long names. Enough.

But Russian long filenames are supported. Fat32 also. ;-)

Procedure of minimization

  1. Install Windows 95 Pan-Europe w/o network
  2. Tune all keyboard, mouse, Regional settings to your favorite. I recommend at least:
  3. Keep configuration (see below, green and red files) in safe place
  4. Reboot, command prompt only mode
  5. Move all files, except mentioned below NECESSARY files, to some another place
  6. Edit configuration files manually, if you want.
  7. Reboot again and check the result
Note, that some files and subdirs WILL be created by Win95 itself after starting.

Note, that some useful programs CANNOT run under this minimized Win95 - they need specific DLL files. This is reason, why you moved unnecessary files to another place, but not delete them. ;-)

Full list of NECESSARY files with useful comments

('?' means that I don't know file's meaning, but system can't work correctly without it).
Green color marks editable text configuration files.
Red color marks binary configuration files.
Brown color marks files, needed for russian locale. This files may be deleted, if you don't need russian at all.

Assumed configuration and installation options

Absolutely needed to start DOS 16 bit at the beginning:

Absolutely needed to see Windows 32 bit graphic environment running

(Paths relative from C:\WINDOWS\ directory) All below files may be extracted from distributive and placed to subdirs: Only two files in this subdir are really needed. This subdir is used when changes in DLL list are occured during software installations. The most complicated subdirectory SYSTEM... Note, that there are some SCSI adapters' drivers files in IOSUBSYS. If you need to minimize Win95 on SCSI disks - do NOT delete appropriate drivers, and KEEP file ASPI2HLP.SYS in WINDOWS directory. Fonts in FONTS directory with Hidden file attribute set: (I recommend you to keep all of them to minimize problems when some programm will look for fonts. ;-)

Configuration management in minimized Win95

Note, that Control Panel is empty in this 'minimized' Win95. You MAY make changes manually, by REGEDIT. Best way to change settings is:
  1. In normal win95 make export all registry to text file t1.reg
  2. change setting
  3. Make export second time to text file t2.reg
  4. Compare and make file of changes app.reg
  5. regedit app.reg ni minimized Win95

Note, that regedit.exe is also 16-bit DOS application, and you can update registry even outside Windows, under plain DOS. But in Command-Line style.

Shells and shell elements


You may choose one of shells by editing line 'Shell=explorer.exe' in file system.ini. You may use Far as shell instead of. I RECOMMEND you to keep taskman.exe even you use your own.

16-bit DOS files to have correct country setting, screen and keyboard

Note, that the most rusification programs do NOT set country code. If you want to use your own DOS rusificator - don't forget to use in autoexec.bat cyrdos.com - small (740b) equivalent of line Country=007,866,C:\WINDOWS.000\COMMAND\country.sys in config.sys.

Files not needed to run Win95 itself, but you may need them when building minimized package...

Result

Summary size of built package is 7.4M before first run, and 8.5M when running (adding .DA0 backup copies of registry created, ShellIconCache, TtfCache files)

w95min02.zip - main archive file.
w95min.bat - File to run
attrib.exe - attribute setting needed
w95min02.txt - File to be used in some programs' command lines as @w95min02.txt. List of all files with full path. Note! "WINDOWS.000" is used in my file instead of "WINDOWS" to prevent errononus unpacking this file over real-installed standard Windows. ;-)

If your distributive is similar enough to 'my' - you may build archive by commands (after correctnig paths by Search/Replace):

C:\> copy io.sys C:\WINDOWS\
C:\> pkzip -whs -P w95min02.zip @w95min02.txt

Unpacking and installation on clean disk C:

C:\> pkunzip -d w95min02.zip
C:\> cd \WINDOWS\COMMAND
C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND> fdisk /mbr
C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND> SYS ..\ C:

So, restoration procedure is more simple and quick, then Windows reinstall... ;-)

Something analogous

Have a nice DOS! Write me on E-Mail