will a win2k install fit on exactly 500MB?

[Shalmanese]

I got a friend who has a dell inspiron 4000 with 192 <MB RAM and came prepackaged with win98SE and Ive been pushing him to get 2k for a long time but he doesn't like it cos he doesnt want to go through the hassle of reformating. Anyway, he noticed that windows was only showing up 4.5 GB when it was meant to show 5GB so I botted up fdisk and it seems that dell just &quot;lost&quot; half a gig from his HD when partitioning. I was wondering if a very lean win2k install could fit on 500MB and have it running a dual boot system since all he is doing with that space is running a 500MB swap file since he doesnt really have anything else to put on it. I dont want to go through the hassle of getting partition magic just to get rid of it though.

 

[HansXP]

Windows really needs AT LEAST 750 MB, 500 MB won't cut it.

 

[EnragedPC]

i just installed it and it took up like 700 megs dude

 

[RichieZ]

the lost 500MB is i think a image of the original install, you can access it by going to a dos promt and typing zztop

 

[Shalmanese]

too late for that, went and fdisked it.

looking here at my dad's work machine, the win2k folder is about 540 MB so I was wondering if there was anyway to cut down from that, everything else will go on the main drive. Could the base files run from D and most of win2k run from C: eg the systems folder?

 

[Elledan]

You could fit Linux on it, but Win2k certainly won't, since everything (WINNT folder, Program Files (some programs install (components) in this folder without your permission) and configuration files) is placed on the C: drive. My C: drive after removing every unnecessary file is 799 MB. This on a 1 GB partition.

 

[Mday]

no. and you may want more ram if you go w2k. 128 was not enough for me. 192 was not enough. 256 was not enough.

oh, 128 is fine if you don't do anything. 256+ is needed if you do stuff. 1GB is best ;-)

 

[rc5]

It can fit in 500MB after installation and your manual deletion. But the installer refuses to install on anything less than 750MB +100-200MB.

 

[luv2chill]

Mday,

1GB of RAM in a workstation is certainly overkill unless you do hard core video editing or hi-res Photoshop work. Check your memory usage in the Task Manager and I think you'll see that under 99% of circumstances you won't be touching even 512MB.

256MB is certainly enought for most people. RAM is cheap though, so if you want overkill, then by all means... but it's a waste.

l2c

P.S. Even most servers won't make use of 1GB of RAM.

 

[TripleJ]

Sorry to be a spoilsport, but wouldn't this belong in the OS category?