OS in RamDisk

[goon-heaven]

Have shrunk AO-core OS but have found that a couple of programs, that control RME HDSPe soundcard, no longer autostart on login. I can start them manually, so no big deal, but would be nice if fixed.

After shrinkage I copy runonce.exe and taskkill.exe into windows system32 & sysWoW64.
Have shrunk many AO-min-server OS without loss of auto-startup.
The registry entries persist in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.

Any ideas? common experiences?

[elaprince]

Guys is it possible to run minimal server core on ram?
Can you post some how to?
Thank you

[Octagon]

Guys is it possible to run minimal server core on ram?
Can you post some how to?
Thank you

Hi,
Yes it is, like Core and GUI mode Minimal Server works in RAM.
You just need to build one VHD which works with Minimal Server. I suggest to build a VHD with the normal R2. Use a copied Version of that VHD with another Name and boot it normal, not in RAM. Go ahead with the normal procedure to go to Minimal Sever and finished all installations etc. you want in this system. Shut down and boot now this VHD into RAM.
Depending how you have build your RAM Boot you need to adjust Grub4Dos so it sees the VHD. You might use a trick to overcome that: Rename the old VHD which worked fine booting into RAM, use that old name for your new minimal server VHD and Grub4DOS will boot it as it is just checking for the name.
Take care
Thomas

[Sligolad]

Great idea Thomas with the copying and renaming, good to know that Grub4dos does not care about the size or content of the VHD file as long as it has the correct file name!
This way you could create multiple flavours of VHDs and copy them to folders with names of what they are, then when you want to use a particular flavour just copy that VHD to the root drive where Grub4Dos will look and boot it into RAM.
The key as you said is to use the same file name for the VHD's.

You probably have to pull the USB key before booting so the system goes back to the original OS so you can then move and copy VHDs in the root drive and then stick the USB boot stick back in and point the Bios back to the USB stick on next boot.
Must try it with some old VHDs i have from previous experiments.

2 months ago I had no idea what a VHD was and now I am beginning to see a lot of options I had never imagined :-)

[Octagon]

Hi Sligoload,
That is the way I was working with RAMOS many months ago. The benefit of different VHD makes backup faster and easier. If you check out new software like JPlay 6 beta, just start with a fresh VHD. I have several highly on SQ optimized VHDs. For example one for MQn, one for JPlay, one for playing video from SSD with VLC, one for playing DVD/ BlueRay from external Player etc. etc.

You can even handle these VHD booting into RAM easy with the Grub4Dos boot menue which offers you at this moment in time only one VHD. How to:
Search for the folder boot in your main system you used to build and where you installed grub4dos. You will have an entre "menu.lst" in there. Take a look, that is where the boot menue information of Grub4dos is stored. You can easily add VHDs based on the existing entry with copy and paste, just edit the name based on the new VHD.
You can find some more details and baclground here including videos:
http://tech.outcult.com/tutorials/winram/01/02.php

Again, I have no idea if that works with "compacted" windows but it should as it is general behaviour of the boot structure. I would expect more difficulties if you are using USB sticks to boot from. I guess in that case you could easily do what I do in just using different USB sticks per VHD, all with the same name. But don't confuse yourself with all the names ;)

Enjoy
Thomas

[elaprince]

Thank you all for help
Will try that

[adolfo.a.aguiar]

My audio pc is headless and I would like to be able to make changes to the compacted system using Remote Desktop. I can boot it using a usb stick (as per "WinRam Installation Guide" from Horst) but the control pc can't find the audio pc.
Does anyone know if a vhd shrinked with VHD_W8_Compact loses Remote Desktop functionality?
If true, is it possible to restore this functionality?
Tks.

Adolfo

No VHD_W8_Compact does not loose RDP as I run my setup headless as well.
You would normally need to enable it before compacting .
If you didn't you can run from commandline: sysdm.cpl and do the settings.
You will have to do this in file-mode and not RAM-mode of course as the settings have to be made permanent inside the VHD.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Tks, Aleg.
Actually RDP was enabled, so I don't know exactly what happened (I think I have run AO and ST).
Started from scratch and now everything is fine.

Adolfo

[sima66]

Can the USB drive which you create when you prepare the RAMDISC on one PC be used on another PC?

[Aleg]

Can the USB drive which you create when you prepare the RAMDISC on one PC be used on another PC?

Not really as it has all drivers installed for the specific mobo and devices.
You would need a computer with an exactly the same mobo for it to work.

[sima66]

Thanks Aleg,
I guess it will be to good to be true! :)