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Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

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Re: Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

#91

Post by happyopossum »

_fat_santa wrote: post #86
azalemeth wrote: post #24

In the days when Windows was easier to crack, it was not uncommon to find very small, specialised ISOs of "miniature windows" designed specifically for running a certain task -- typically some form of data-recovery app, system repair/maintenance or similar -- and they would fit on a single CD-R, have almost no system requirements, and, if I recall successfully, be bloody useful to my school's computer administrators…

I wonder why they would repackage a Windows ISO rather than a Linux one. My bet is the software that is in these ISO's only runs on Windows? Otherwise it would seem that a Linux distro would be the perfect candidate for something like this.

You have to understand that the state of Linux in the early 90s wasn't what it is today. Partitioning/reading/fixing a FAT16/FAT32 disk from Linux was perilous, if even possible....

Re: Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

#92

Post by npteljes »

azalemeth wrote: post #24

In the days when Windows was easier to crack, it was not uncommon to find very small, specialised ISOs of "miniature windows" designed specifically for running a certain task -- typically some form of data-recovery app, system repair/maintenance or similar -- and they would fit on a single CD-R, have almost no system requirements, and, if I recall successfully, be bloody useful to my school's computer administrators…

I found this same hacker spirit in the FOSS world. Windows just struggles so much to be independent from its user, that I realized that I have to give up. I hope that many did the same and now nurture their talent where at least they don't have to swim dead against the current.

Re: Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

#93

Post by hda111 »

jsudi wrote: post #36
st_goliath wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least over here (Germany & Austria) Bosch is a very common household name, as they not only are one of the larger employers around, but also have their logo on lots of common household appliances (e.g. dish washers, washing machines, ...) and tools, in addition to manufacturing ECUs for pretty much the entire German car industry. I just found the idea quite funny that I could have a "BOSCH emulator" in my tool box…

Siemens writes a lot of software. Wouldn’t surprise me if Bosch also did

Bosch publishes some Java Open Source stuff for IoT.

Re: Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

#94

Post by telendram »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #68
theandrewbailey wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Windows 98 came with Active Desktop: you could display bits of website on your desktop as widgets I never found Active Desktop all that useful. It was annoying because if you wanted a jpg desktop wallpaper, it would enable Active Desktop just for that. The problem was that it noticeably slowed the entire system. I would always convert to bmp and use that, taking a hit on disk space (and possibly RAM) instead of spe…

I don't see how using a BMP would've taken a hit on RAM; it needs to decompress the JPEG to display on the screen anyway, after all.

Well, maybe you have to remember the capacities of these days. If my memory serves me right, a "good" computer for win98se was 64 MB of RAM. But of course, there were plenty of "less powerful" ones still running, with 32 or even 16 MB of RAM. With such limitation, I can see how a 800x600 BMP image can become a drain on RAM. The swap engine tries to make up for it transparently by using swap space on spin-disk HDD, but then, it becomes sloooow.

Re: Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

#95

Post by janci »

st_goliath wrote: post #15
janci wrote: post #2

I actually used this to run Windows in a BOSCH emulator on my first smartphone - HTC TyTN II. It was painfully slow and unusable for any practical purposes.

> BOSCH emulator Do you perhaps mean Bochs[1]? I've seen it booting Windows 95 on an early PSP and similar stunts, so running Windows inside Bochs on a smartphone would IMO not be that much out of the ordinary. Or is there really a PC emulator from BOSCH[2] available somewhere? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bochs [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bosch_GmbH

Yes, Bochs.

Re: Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

#96

Post by telendram »

Maakuth wrote: post #52

This could be a nice OS for archive.org's browser embedded PC emulator environment: https://archive.org/details/win95_in_dosbox . Not so fun to download 45 megabytes of Windows installation to try out some piece of shareware :)

I think the pb is that it's so barebone that pretty much nothing works out of the box. One has to add a few more components, depending on which application needs to run (as an OS alone is, well, not an end in itself). However, that's where it stings : adding "components", yet but which ones ? in which order ? how ? Componentization was not a topic, so there's no tool, almost no doc, just tribal knowledge on the topic. That makes it essentially useless for the vast majority of humanity.

Re: Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

#97

Post by rightbyte »

IntelMiner wrote: post #65
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, honestly I usually have Windows Update disabled anyway because it causes much more headache than it is worth. Occasionally, once a year at most, I re-enable and update and it has about a 50/50 chance of not making me wish I'd just reinstalled instead.

That sounds decidedly self-inflicted. Windows 10 (minus its LTSC variants) are designed for a much quicker update cycle. "jumping" from versions literally a year apart sounds like a great way to break things

It is usually better to chose when to risk breaking stuff then having some auto updater running.

Re: Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

#98

Post by u801e »

cies wrote: post #34

> I have only tested this with Windows 98se. Win98SE the last windows i actually enjoyed using and believed it was an improvement over the its predecessor. Nowadays im afraid to run modern windows without a VM and a firewall.

I used Win 98 SE for a few years, but I subsequently switched to Windows 2000 which was far more stable. I used the same installation (installing updates and service packs via Windows update) from around 2002 through 2010 until a lightning strike took out the system board and the computer could not make it past the BIOS POST check.

Re: Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

#99

Post by gigel82 »

azalemeth wrote: post #24

In the days when Windows was easier to crack, it was not uncommon to find very small, specialised ISOs of "miniature windows" designed specifically for running a certain task -- typically some form of data-recovery app, system repair/maintenance or similar -- and they would fit on a single CD-R, have almost no system requirements, and, if I recall successfully, be bloody useful to my school's computer administrators…

I tried WinReducer on Windows 10 recently; it didn't reduce the ISO size by much, but it did successfully remove pre-installed apps and services that serve no useful purpose (like telemetry, legacy server features, etc.). Went with a fine-toothed comb through the task scheduler afterwards and managed to get down to a pretty snappy Win10 install that quickly boots to the desktop with 1.8Gb RAM usage (as opposed to the 2.5Gb RAM I see on a regular Win10 install on the same machine).

Don't use its defaults though; it'll remove Microsoft Account login and Store (which I wanted because I have Game Pass for the kids).

Re: Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

#100

Post by wolpoli »

After discovering that the Windows 98 DOS bootup disks boots DOS, creates a ram drive, and decompresses the various utilities into a ram drive, I decided that it would be fun optimizing the bootup disk. I tried various things that include switching out the cabinet decompressor with pkunzipjr and formating the floppy disk with 2MGUI, a utility that puts 2 megabytes of data onto a disk, but I couldn't fit the 3 disks set into 1 disk.

Those were fun times.

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