Hi,

Bit of a technical one for you ...

When I had cable internet intalled the engineer was telling me that it's possible to run the XP operating system from RAM (and not from the HD).

Apparently you need at least 1GB of ram to do this ... but it will make your system fly (run faster) ...

Other benefits were that you can have multiple instances of the OS and switch between them like you use the alt-tab task switcher for applications.

He did tell me what this was called ... but I forgot.

Anybody know what this might be called !?

I'm guessing that if you had a GB of RAM then the most of the OS would be contained in the RAM anyway.

This looks like the sort of thing you're after: http://www.superspeed.com/ramdisk.html

Originally posted by Sidla
This looks like the sort of thing you're after: http://www.superspeed.com/ramdisk.html

That looks cool thanks Sid ... but it's not the thing I was looking for.

It was called something ... I just forget what I was.

It basically runs your OS totally from RAM and lets you have multiple instances of OS that you can switch between (all in RAM).

Your gunna need more than 1gb of Ram. After Windows has finished with it you will have nothing left for anything else!

Not heard about XP doing this, but I believe BSD runs in system ram - if you want to move to using a REAL operating system ;)

Originally posted by evildrneil
Not heard about XP doing this, but I believe BSD runs in system ram - if you want to move to using a REAL operating system ;)

Do you mean a 'real operating system' where none of my applications will work (including the ones I have developed myself) ? ;)

Well I was just thinking, it's the sort of thing you could try in Linux; not heard anything about it being possible in XP though. I'm all googled out too.

Originally posted by Sidla
Well I was just thinking, it's the sort of thing you could try in Linux; not heard anything about it being possible in XP though. I'm all googled out too.

Thanks for looking Sid ... I will go check it out on some geeky forum !!

I found it !!!!

It's called 'HyperOs' ... http://www.hyperos2002.com/

HyperOs is an OS multiplier and a multi OS manager controlled from Windows.

Keep your existing Windows installation and either clone several more of them with a simple drag and drop, or add up to 20 more copies of 95 OSR2, 98, Me, 2k and XP all on one hard disk without multi-booting, without virtual PCs and without hiding any partitions.

Switch between Windows Systems with two clicks of a mouse, backup, restore, image, Zip, UnZip, clone, copy, delete and move whole Windows Systems in seconds with a drag and a drop.

Spread your software load across several Operating Systems to improve performance and stability in each.

God forbid!! - isn't one copy of Windows bad enough!? And Windows ME *shudder*!!!

Originally posted by Jamie
I found it !!!!

It's called 'HyperOs' ... http://www.hyperos2002.com/
Pricey though...

it's a load of old tosh.

Originally posted by Cyclone
it's a load of old tosh.

These guys (who have actually tried the product) seem to disagree with you Cyclone.

Source: http://www.hyperosforum.co.uk/hosf/viewtopic.php?p=3070#3070

The 'Diary' taught me a lot about HyperOS, and I learnt a few things about Windows in the process.

Having used HOS now for what must be 9 months or so, I can honestly say it has changed the way I use windows computers forever. I am still to be convinced on its reliability with Linux (I use Solaris mostly).

The gripes and grumbles aside, not to say they are still not as valid today as they were before (possibly more so in S22), once you are up and running HOS life just seems to be so much easier.

I created 22 partions on my main 160gb drive, and deliberatly decided not to install an OS on the C drive. D is my MASTER installation of XP. No software goes on there, just driver updates and OS fixes. This is used as the basis for any new XP installation, which are then a simple drag and drop affair.

I keep my software development environment seperate from my video editing, and my games, and my company development, and my utilities, and my benchmarking and...well the list goes on.

I used to have to do a complete reload of my System once every 8 to 10 months as I would go through so much software, and applications are so poor at uninstalling themselves, particularly the registry, that the machine would really drag in the end.

A new installation feels like a new PC, but now I can do that with any instance of XP without having to reinstall all my applications.

The only instance I occasionaly reinstall now is my basic workstation, were I download and try software, browse the internet and so on. If it gets in a mess I just trash it and restore an earlier, clean image.

Life is good....life is VERY good.

I have every intention of putting HOS on the QA test machines in my new company, I can think of no better way of allowing testers to switch in and out of test configurations quicker and be able to restore clean installations than HOS.

It took a while to be convinced fully that HOS was worth the money, I still think it's a little over priced, but I would not be without it again...EVER.

Source: http://www.hyperosforum.co.uk/hosf/viewtopic.php?p=3071#3071

Hi nizzi

In an attempt to get you off the fence let me say that as long as I have Windows, the one piece of sortware I WILL NOT be without is HyperOs!
Over the last 18 months I've resized partitions, deleted partitions and added new ones, increased the number of XP partitions and reduced the number with W98 and done all sorts of messing about. And in all that time I've only had one, yes just ONE, crash. And that was my fault - I got too enthusiastic with my meddling and screwed up big time. However, I had replaced the bust system and was back in business as though nothing had happened within 5 minutes! HyperOs is an absolute Godsend. Stability and immediate and total recovery if you screw up. (providing you make regular backup images)

Just read through the manual 3 times or so before starting so you get it all fixed in your mind and then make sure you do exactly what it says. Do not deviate because you think you know better. I would suggest starting from scratch with a newly formatted drive and follow the manual slavishly with regard to a new system and you should have no troubles.

If I sound evangelistic it is because previous to running HyperOs I used to have to reformat and reinstall windows from scratch on average every 6 months. Not any more! HyperOs is THE killer app that makes Windows long term usable.

However ... like Sid says ... it ain't cheap.

£100 - £200 ... and the HyperDriveII cost £500+vat for 2GB and $700+vat for 3GB.

so they proved that you can have multiple installations. Big deal, you can already with xp.
The FUD is the "runs totally in ram". If you know much about the way computers work, you'll know that software already runs "totally in memory", in fact it runs in registers in the processor.
So at the most all they are doing is caching the entire windows directory and all subdirectories in ram (not actually possible with 1GB of course). And an incredibly inefficient use of memory. Windows already caches the commonly used data it needs, it deliberately swaps out some bits of data that it only needs infrequently (swaps out means places in virtual memory), and the rest of the installation data is there on disk for the very few times it's needed.