I use Win98 SE in VMWare.

- My old installation boots very slow. Using Boot Log Analyzer, i've found crazy (40 sec) delay between last DOS driver and VMM32.VXD boot.
- New installation didn't suffer from this issue (delay was 2 sec max, boot was 12 sec).
- But after several hours installing different programs and updates, problem raised again (20 sec delay).
- I've tried to defrag and clean up everything; no effect.
- I've tried to remove my svga logo loader; no effect.
- Then i've deleted smartdrv.exe. It is only file being loaded between DOS and VMM32.VXD.
- It helped! Delay lowered down to 4 sec.
- It helped for old installation too!

So, the question: did anyone have expirienced such issue? Has anyone tried working without smartdrv.exe?
I haven't noticed slowdowns without smartdrv.exe.

Maybe you could try Virtual PC 2004 too, it is now free of charge:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en

I never seen any boot delays with it.

I've noticed just some quirks:
- When using VM Additions display driver and non-US base font, some characters somewhere are displayed as small rectangles.
- Files written to Virtual Folders does not keep the date and time.

Otherwise no problems.

I have created myself also bootable setup CD-ROMs for all versions of all operating systems so even the instalation is easy.

Do not forget to set DMA on, it makes big difference.

Petr