Is it possible to load entire Windows into RAM?

[mattbiernat]

Correct me if I am wrong but I believe there are some Linux distros that load themselves up into RAM and run from the computer like that. Now that these days we have around 4Gbs of ram and soon we will have 8, wouldn't it be nice to load entire os into RAM and run it from there. Is it possible for windows?

[Radioguy]

I know you can from a thumbdrive and CD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_USB
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BartPE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Pr ... nvironment

[mattbiernat]

yeah but the whole point of loading windows into ram is to speed up its access. loading windows from CD or USB would make it horribly slow.

[Marin85]

Correct me if I am wrong but I believe there are some Linux distros that load themselves up into RAM and run from the computer like that. Now that these days we have around 4Gbs of ram and soon we will have 8, wouldn't it be nice to load entire os into RAM and run it from there. Is it possible for windows?

What do you mean by entire Windows? I don´t think that 15 GBs of expanded Vista Ultimate installation can load into the system memory that easily... Well, the kernel of the OS is loaded into the system memory, but it´s just a very small part of the whole. You could achieve something similar using RAMdisk. If you have enough memory (and I don´t consider 4 GBs as enough for such a task since 4 GB RAM are almost standard to accomplish common tasks in Vista...), you would be then able to specify which windows components and applications will be loaded into the system memory (you could put the swap file also onto a RAMdisk). But that´s also what prefetch/superfetch are actually designed to do (more or less), I beg we could do it manually better though Anyway, if you really want to manage something like, you should be looking for some RAMdisk application and more memory (my opinion). BTW, you will have to sacrifice precious boot time to accomplish this because of the RAMdisk. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to hear how it goes. I have always wanted to try out this stuff myself.

Cheers,

Marin

[mattbiernat]

i was thinking more like installing entire OS into the RAM. And yes Vista can take a lot of space but XP is tiny and can be nlited.

[jamerslong]

It could be done in theory, albeit it is not the best plan... It would involve Installing windows to the hard drive, then on boot have a program create a RAM drive and copy that drive to it then swap drive letters on startup. I would only try this with something like TinyXP. You would also have to find a software configuration that would perfom the outlined tasks for you. My dad used to load his programs completely into RAM with a RAM drive to get better performance out of it.

It would be a Daunting task to setup, but entirely possible in theory.

Linux would be a good place to look for some ideas since they create RAM drives all the time on alot of distros, same with the Win98 recovery discs, they made a virtual B: drive in the RAM

[TheRedFox]

what would be awesome would be loading an entire game onto a ramdisk, and then playing it with amazing speed!

[aaa]

what would be awesome would be loading an entire game onto a ramdisk, and then playing it with amazing speed!

Now that is actually possible.

[Marin85]

Actually, most of the recent games do it. They load the game engine into the memory and then try to load the whole map/level into the memory too.

[Beaver]

So THIS is why I can not use my ZX Spectrum with 48 kB of RAM to play Crysis even if it's attached to the DS8000 storage with 4 TB capacity ?

[TheRedFox]

So THIS is why I can not use my ZX Spectrum with 48 kB of RAM to play Crysis even if it's attached to the DS8000 storage with 4 TB capacity ?

haha!