Thread by @RetroTechChris

A few days ago, I had the Compaq laptop fleet out! Recently, I had "redone" my DOS/Win3.11 setup. I wanted to copy this new setup to all of my LTE 5000 laptops, but didn't want to completely reload them! Let's talk about what I did! Time for a quick 🧵

So, first question, why redo the setup? Recently, I loaded an XTIDE patch on my Compaq LTE 5400 to allow large drive support. I ended up having to really optimize conventional memory. I also simplified the boot process to always load network drivers:

https://x.com/RetroTechChris/status/2048599272732475516

Alright, great! So, what's a good optimal way to "patch" the existing laptops with the old setup? How about a batch file on a floppy disk? Also, I discovered a few things about the new setup I wanted to fix too in the process. Let's handle both cases!

I split this process into two rounds. For Round 1, I ran a batch file that would delete directories that I didn't want (at least for now), copy over an optimized config. sys depending on the sound card type, move drivers around, remove stray files...

...and also run chkdsk and load up an editor for me to make a few manual edits to system.ini. Some may ask "why are you trying to remove directories after you create them?" Well, Round 2 does a directory check, and if they are truly empty, I want them gone. Plus, I was lazy 😂

Oh, here is Round 1 in action!

Now for Round 2, where I wanted to copy over a few applications and bigger files. I was going to use my MicroSD to LPT adapter, but network is faster! So, I booted up my Cisco Aironet 350 LAN Manager disk to copy files from a network share with another batch file!

So for Round 2, I did try to optimize and not copy directories if already present. I also copied over an optimized Card Services allocation file for my PCMCIA configuration, as well as SHSUCDX for my CD-ROM drives, since it is more memory efficient than MSCDEX

So how did we do? Not too bad! Looking at conventional memory, on the systems with XTIDE we have 562K of conventional memory free (without CD-ROM drivers loaded) and the non XTIDE systems have 607K free. That's enough to run Commander Keen!

Well, anyway, that was fun. But I most go now, I have more systems to configure 🤣. All kidding aside, I do need to finish packing for VCFSW, I head to Texas tomorrow! Thanks for following along.

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