Just an unusual question about booting Windows into RAM

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Reapexx

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Sep 4, 2013
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Is it possible to load a Windows installation image from a disk into the computer's ram upon boot, then run the image as if it were being run off of a RAM disk?
 
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Ijack
Now you are asking a different question - how to boot Windows from an external drive. I don't know if that is possible in general but, if so, it is going to be excruciatingly slow.

Bear in mind that Windows installation not only depend upon the particular hardware that they are installed on (for device drivers), but also are tied to that hardware by licence key and activation. I don't think it would be possible to produce a Windows disk that would boot and run on any computer, let alone an externally connected one.

This sort of thing is possible with Linux.
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Ijack

Ijack

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Jul 30, 2008
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Provided you have enough spare RAM it would certainly be possible. My Windows 7 installation take about 50+GB so I would need a fair bit of spare RAM. And it would take a fair while to read that 50GB from the disk when I rebooted the computer.

Personally I would go with an SSD; it's much cheaper and allows you to use your RAM for more constructive purposes.
 
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Reapexx

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Sep 4, 2013
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I have a particular installation that takes up a very small amount of space (<4GB), and I'm trying to create a disk that I could take with me and boot on any computer, generally. I tried installing it on a USB drive, but the inefficiency with that solution is astounding.
 
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Ijack

Ijack

Splendid
Jul 30, 2008
7,099
0
28,010
Now you are asking a different question - how to boot Windows from an external drive. I don't know if that is possible in general but, if so, it is going to be excruciatingly slow.

Bear in mind that Windows installation not only depend upon the particular hardware that they are installed on (for device drivers), but also are tied to that hardware by licence key and activation. I don't think it would be possible to produce a Windows disk that would boot and run on any computer, let alone an externally connected one.

This sort of thing is possible with Linux.
 
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