I'm wondering if anyone knows how to reduce the final installed size of windows 98 and how low it can actually go by stripping out all nessisary things.

In theory, i want to be able to stick it on a 128mb flash drive along with emulators and such. I've seen programs out there that claim to shrink this stuff down, but i'd rather do it a manual (and free) way first if possible.

I've seen one ripped down to 10Mb, and another at 4Mb

So it can go quite low

That does not help much;

@Guyanthalas. The final install size, i think you may be able to acomplish this by removing the windows installation which copies it self onto your harddrive. I know this is not really helpful but i have no idea how to apcomplish that, never used windows 98, only NT 4.0 and then XP. Let me know how this turns out.

I'd have to see it to believe it.

As for the original question posted, you could try using 98Lite, which gives you the ability to remove IE and several other non-essential files. However, I have seen issues with it in regards to stability and view of some sites coded specifically for IE.

Is it possible to install DirectX 9.0b when having Windows ME installed with 98lite??

saw that 10mb version myself... google "nano 98"

also have a look for STREWTH! 98, a bit less extreme then nano.Its a little annoying to read though,a lot of it sounds like some marketing campaign for himself.

Depending on what you want to use 98 for you can strip out all the non essential files. = IE, AOL etc...

I use mine for Audio software and nothing else, it is currently 56Mb with my drivers, and codecs installed. So yes, you strip it down, but be carefull....

I took me a while to find out what i needed, and didnt need.... (3 Weeks and 1,000,000. re-installs ! LOL)