How to set up Ram Drive

[robinson]

TO CREATE A RAM DRIVE ON WINDOWS XP/2000
You may want to print this off for reference.
Note: for a RAM drive you will have to sacrifice part of you available RAM. If you are low on RAM you might not want to do this. If you have typically 256MB or more and only use your computer for "normal' tasks other than gaming, you should be OK. Also, you will be able to vary the size of your RAM drive depending on what you want to use it for.
Download this file:
XP RAMdisk download
Extract it and note the location where you extracted the files.
Go to Control Panel -> Add Hardware -> Choose From a List -> Other Devices -> Have Disk. The 'disk' is the location where you extracted the files
Your RAM drive is now installed. However, it will only have a size of 1MB.

To adjust the size and drive letter of your RAM drive.
Note: we are going to alter some registry keys. Backup (Export) your Registry before you begin, or at least note down everything you changed.
Go to Start -> Run and type in regedit.
Navigate to this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Ramdisk\Parameters.
"DriveLetter" is set by default to Z: You can change this if you like.
To change the size of your RAM drive.Change the hexadecimal value of "DiskSize" (double-click): 800000 for an 8MB RAM drive; or 1060000 for a 16MB RAM drive; 1600000 for an 22MB RAM drive. You can enter different sizes as you wish, but for general use, 8 or 16MB is plenty.
Reboot for the changes to take effect.

Now to set default file locations to the RAM drive.
To set Internet cache and surfing files to your RAM drive.
One distinct advantage to doing this is that your web surfing will be faster since you are accessing these files from RAM and not from the Hard Drive, which is much slower. Those who know how to find these in the Registry will know what to do. But for those who don't, or don't feel brave enough, I suggest using the program X-Teq's X-Setup, available here:
X-Setup download
An advantage of X-Setup is that it's easier to undo any Registry changes you make. Note down any changes you make. You can do any or all of these:
Navigate to: System/File System/ Folders/ System/ Windows Folders #1
Type in the cache folder as Z:\Temporary Internet Files
In Windows Folders #3 you can change the default for Recent if you want.
In System/File System/ Folders/ Data/ Internet Explorer Folders do the same with Cookies and History
Reboot for the changes to take effect.

To set the default location of TEMP files
Be aware that some programs and installations will fail if you don't have enough space for these.
In X-Setup navigate to System/ File System/ Folders/ Temporary and type in the RAM drive location as in Z:\TEMP
Reboot for the changes to take effect.

[Jason]

I downloaded the ram drive & followed your instructions exactly, to set all the cookie & temp files.
Only problem is that now when I go to OE I can see the headers on the top of the screen but the bottom (the body of the E-Mails are blank cant see a thing.
So the question is could this be related to the swap files & do I need to point OE to the Z drive?????
Thanks

[lynx_kid]

Just wondering why you folks download RamDrive when XP already has the drivers available for install?

[Guest]

Where are the files?