Speedup Operating System Installation And Maintainance

Save yourself time by making Windows installation files available on your hard drive.

We know you've had this problem: you install a new mouse, change a network setting, do almost anything that upsets the delicate balance in Windows and you're prompted to insert the Windows so-and-so CD. Where is it? Did you grab the right one?

If you have a lot of free disk space (about 700 MB), take a cue from the major PC makers and copy the files from your Windows CD to your hard drive. In fact, it's not a bad idea to copy the files before you install Windows so the resulting installation automatically knows where to find the files later—thus no prompting to insert a CD later.


PC manufacturers have typically placed the Windows 95, 98, 98SE, and Me files in a C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS folder, and Windows NT, 2000 or XP files into C:\i386.

You can emulate this pattern for Windows 9x-Me by creating these folders on your hard drive from a DOS prompt, then copying the files from the CD (assuming this is drive D:) as follows, from the A:\> DOS prompt:

A:\>C:

C:\>MD WINDOWS C:\>MD

\WINDOWS\OPTIONS C:\>MD

\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS C:\>CD

\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS C:\

\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS>COPY

D:\WIN98\*.*


Start the Windows installation from this folder by typing:

C:\ \WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS>SETUP

For Windows NT-XP:

A:\>C: C:\>MD

i386 C:\>CD i386

C:\I386>COPY D:\i386\*.*


Start the Windows installation from this folder by running this command:

C:\I386>WINNT


The next time Windows needs a file from the installation CD it will automatically look in the appropriate folder, copy the file, and move on.

Related Article: