Jeff Arnold offers:
The following tip can greatly improve CD-R performance under Windows 95. This
could prevent buffer underruns and other common problems from occuring. By
default, Windows 95 does excessive file caching. This is a waste of CPU time,
memory, and possibly disk space, since you will never go back and use anything
in the cache. To fix this problem, do the following...
1) Open the file SYSTEM.INI with a text editor (this file will usually be found
in C:\WINDOWS or C:\WIN95).
2) Find the section of the file called "[vcache]".
3) Add the following lines after the "[vcache]" line.
minfilecache=512
maxfilecache=4096
4) Save the file changes.
5) Reboot your PC.
NOTE: If you have any problems with this setup, you can just remove the lines and reboot your system again.
NOTE: If you have changed the cache and are having problems with DCD recognizing a formatted disc, try backing out this change.
IMPORTANT: Adaptec provides valuable information consistent with Jeff's - and freeware to make things work. For example, you can and should pick up ASPICHK from them. It determines the modules in your ASPI layer and reports whether or not they need to be updated. If you need to update, you can do it with freeware from the same site.
Other thoughts to consider - and not just for Win95:
Where possible, put your pagiefile (swap file) on a different physical drive from the one that you are using to store your data.
Defragment your HD before you read data or build an image from a CD.
Defrag the HD from which you will be writing before starting the burn.
A friend reports:
It appears that Win95 is not shy about putting duplicate drivers here and
there. You may only see this in "safe" mode, so bring Win95 up in
Safe Mode, go to System Properties, and look at Device Manager. If redundant
devices appear that weren't visible in regular mode, deleted *all* the hard
drive devices, floppy drive devices, and redundant devices ports, etc. Then
reboot several times until Win95 finds all the hardware again and installs only
*one* copy of each.
While packet writing needs AIN, this in itself does not enable Autorun (or Autoplay). For that purpose, I suggest using TweakUI from Microsoft's Power Toys. At this writing, it can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/NTWorkstation/downloads/PowerToys/Networking/NTTweakUI.asp
E-mail me at cdrecording@mrichter.com
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