A. Why am I talking about the MS-DOS SmartDrv utility? Well if you
use the WINNT.EXE installation method for NT and do not use SMARTDRV the
installation will take multitudes of times longer than if you do use it.
At the most basic you may create a DOS bootable disk (format a: /s from DOS)
that just maps to a network drive and starts the installation. To take
advantage of SMARTDRV copy onto the disk the files:
You should then edit (or create) the file AUTOEXEC.BAT and add the line
<path>smartdrv.exe /q
e.g. a:smartdrv.exe /q
Now edit (or again create) the file CONFIG.SYS and add the line
device=himem.sys
Himem.sys is needed by smartdrv and allows access to higher areas of memory.
This applies equally to locally installed copies of DOS however SMARTDRV.EXE
is automatically installed but make sure you are using it by looking at
autoexec.bat.
Also adding the line
BUFFERS=99
to CONFIG.SYS on the bootable disk can speed up operations.