DKC Atlas Forum

[Simion32]

Windows XP: Running *ON* RAM -- Godlike System Speeds!
Please Note: I think this also works with other versions of Windows up to at least Windows 7.
**You can also combine this with the 8GB XP RAM trick listed here: 8GB on Windows XP - Bypass The RAM Limit!!
But be sure that you account for the RAM that XP's install now uses up!!

This is a really clever trick I found by experimenting around with boot options and searching the internet. Have fun!

Ever wanted your system to run faster? Be free of viruses for a clean, totally disinfected "sandboxed" work or browsing environment? Blow away all the nonsense with a completely customizable XP install that you can burn to a CD/DVD/BluRay and boot the system right on the RAM memory!! This is even faster than booting XP from an SSD, by many orders of magnitude. But booting from a RAM Disk Drive (RDD) will take much longer as the initial copy has to happen at ordinary CD/DVD/BluRay speeds (or at higher if you are adventurous enough to try copying from a HDD into RAM).

Essentially this trick is doing the follwing:
[Windows XP → Customize → Install Firadisk → Turn off Pagefiles on C:\ → Turn off Hibernation → Shrink & Cleanup XP (Reduce Filesize) → Partition Shrink (As Much As Possible!) → Create Boot Image Using IMGBurn —> Create Grub4Dos ISO —> Burn To CD/DVD/BD —> Boot the Disc —> OS Runs In RAM]

Requirements:

• Enough RAM to fit an entire OS hard drive on.
• You will need a disc partition editor to shrink your hard drive image!!

Turning Off Your C:\ Pagefile

You need to disable the C:\ drive's paging file before this will work properly. To do so, go to [Start > My Computer (Right Click) > Properties > Advanced > Performance > Settings > Advanced > Virtual Memory > Change]. Click on C:\ in the list and make sure you click "No Pagefile" and then "Set" to disable the pagefile. Then click OK a few times to exit settings (Windows may ask you to restart, if it does, then you should restart).

Turning Off Hibernation

Hibernation will not work with this technique, so you must turn off hibernation (also required to clean up disk space). [Start > Control Panel > Power Options > Hibernation] and un-check the checkbox for enabling hibernation. Then, restart the computer to remove hiberfil.sys from your C:\ drive.

**** GUIDE IS IN PROGRESS ****

**** PLEASE CHECK BACK HERE LATER ****


While I'm still working on the guide, you can have a look around here:
http://diddy.boot-land.net/firadisk/

[Markster]

I've heard of RAM drives and people who load stuff like files and programs in, but I've never heard of someone running the entire Windows XP OS in RAM, it sounds like a match made in heaven!

I have 8GB of RAM in my machine, but I have Windows 10 so I can't really do this.

[Simion32]

This will actually work for any OS as long as it only needs to boot from/with one partition AND you have enough RAM left to spare.

Enabling drive compression does quite a bit for XP in getting it shrunk down.

The benefits are many orders of magnitude faster than if you boot the OS from an SSD. However, I can see spurious "disk accesses" getting in the way of CPU cache performance (with regard to programs that use the L1/L2 cache very well), so I suppose it's a kind of tradeoff.

If there is minimal drive activity due to windows, though, the performance level should be roughly the same (say, when running DELTA).

[Markster]

Thanks, I thought this was only for Windows XP or so, but I'm not sure if Windows 10 will fit into 8GB of RAM (7GB usable). ^^;