During the installation of Windows 98, you may experience problems with the CD-ROM drive or you may want to speed up the installation process.  By copying the setup files to your hard drive you can bypass the CD-ROM drive and speed up installation.  NOTE: You can also perform this procedure with the Windows 95 installation.  Just replace the 98's in this article with 95's.  Here's how:

1.  Free up more disk space.  You'll need ~200 MB extra to store the setup and CAB files.  2.   If you're NOT having problems with the CD-ROM drive, you can bypass the step.   Create a bootable floppy with CD-ROM drivers.  Insert the floppy disk and boot your PC.

2.  From DOS, create a directory to store the setup files.  Type:  C: {ENTER} where C is your hard drive letter.  Then MD SETUP98 {ENTER} then CD SETUP98 {ENTER}.  Change to your CD-ROM drive by typing:  D: {ENTER} where D is the CD-ROM drive letter.   Type: CD WIN98{ENTER} then COPY *.* C:\SETUP98 {ENTER}  This will copy all of the necessary setup files to your hard drive.  If you have full use of your CD-ROM drive within Windows 95, just copy the Win98 folder from the CD-ROM to the hard drive and rename it to SETUP98 to avoid any confusion.

3.  Type CD SETUP98 {ENTER} and then SETUP {ENTER}.  You're now on your way.

NOTE:  Copying the setup files to the hard drive is a better way to perform the installation for several reasons:

1)  When adding new hardware or Windows software, you may be prompted to provide the Windows setup files.   This way you don't have to dig out the CD-ROM, just point to your SETUP98 directory.

2)  If you like to perform a complete format every couple of months, you can create two partitions on your hard drive.  One for Windows and a smaller partition for the Windows setup files.   This way you only have to format one partition and can quickly perform setup from the smaller partition.

3)  Speed.   No matter how fast your CD-ROM is, your HD is faster (unless you have an old clunker hard drive).  And who will deny that we always need setups to go faster?