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Really? Then you better not tells the guys at VLite who have been doing it since Win2K (formerly NLite for NT) or the guys at RT7Lite who have made a tool so simple your grandma can use it. Oh and FYI but you have been able to uninstall IE since XP SP2, its under Windows Components in Add/Remove on XP or Programs and Features on Vista on up.

So maybe you ought to actually try something before you go spreading FUD since its obvious you probably have touched a Windows machine since WinME considering how badly out of data your supposed info is. Oh and in case you are wondering Yes Virginia you CAN change Windows Shells, there are about a dozen free ones to choose from but I prefer AstonShell for their secure desktop which is light and easy peasy to lock down with GPOs.

So I'm sorry but the ONLY thing Linux has going for it is "free as in beer" and that is if and ONLY if your time is worthless, otherwise you get the "fun" of breaking updates or the "interesting challenge" of Black Screens Of Death thanks to Linux hanging onto a 40 year old client/server paradigm that hasn't been relevant for the vast majority in over 25 years. I'm sorry but there is no comparison, I can place Windows and OSX in the "Hairyfeet Challenge" and they'll both come out with flying colors, Linux will have at least one if not several drivers crapped on and wasted thanks to updates not caring about drivers. Don't say "If they were only in the kernel" because that is bullshit the kernel drivers are ONLY decent on relatively new and relatively popular devices, the rest are half baked and poorly maintained.

Now I could set down and show you mathematically why Linus' "Let the kernel devs do it" can never work in a billion years but since you are just gonna call me dirty names anyway why bother? I'm sure any response i get will just be the circular logic Linux fans love which is why I have all Linux articles blocked. isn't it funny how we give the FOSSies their own section yet that isn't good enough, they HAVE to come preach their religion in articles that have nothing to do with them? I think the fact that more people are willing to risk thousands in fines and even jail time to steal the other guy's OS rather than take yours ought to frankly be all that needs to be said, your product simply doesn't measure up, sorry.

Why use an illegal spyware ridden torrent copy ?

Just use nLite for customizing an XP install, or vLite for a custom vista* install. Both tools do a very good job of creating lightweight Windows installations.

(*although WHY anyone would still be running vista, is beyond me.)

-Jar

The important thing with Linux is, that you can choose how much you system takes to boot up.

You can do the same thing with XP or Vista. The difference is that you need to do it with a third party tool, but nonetheless, paring down your OS is a power user task, and power users are the kind of folks who download said tools.

My preferred copy of XP right now is one I stripped down with nLite. Boots in 13 seconds on a 1 GHz P3 machine. I need to rebuild it with new patches, though.

nLite & vLite my friend. Not only can you remain legal, but you get a much better set of options that with your pirated CD. It can even do hands free installs so that next time someone has a problem, then can just re-do the whole thing themselves.....

(Although some of them were rather silly, a cached programs popup? Like I need more popups on my toolbar. If users are smart enough to know how much page file Vista is using, they're smart enough to know why).

As a systems admin, what I'd really like in addition to the modular OS is a much advanced installer. I would like a full set of options on what to install and what not to install. (Lets go ahead an uncheck WMP DRM, Alexa, Windows Messenger, and a whole other host of unnecessary crap). Maybe even a "quick minimal" installation of only the required components to get Windows to run. You'll notice even Vista runs fairly nicely once add SP1 and chop it up with a tool like vLite.

I keep evangelizing this program on Slashdot, but it keeps being worth it, so I'll do it again.

If people are going to build slipstreamed XP discs, they need to start using nLite. It allows you not only to slipstream in SP3, but also things like Windows Media Player 11 (nice), and there are packs you can grab from the site to add things like Firefox, Acrobat, Sun Java, FoxIt PDF Reader, and so on.

â¦THENâ¦

You can go through and remove stuff. Windows XP has a ton of drivers for video cards. It doesn't support most nVidia video cards, or newer ATI stuff either, but it DOES support old Trident cards (likely even my old 256kb Trident card). it also has support for (and drivers for) ATM networking (even in the Home version, afaik). You can strip all of that out. Also feel free to take out fax support, dial-up-networking support, Domain support (if you use XP Pro at home, or MCE), and so on.

Take out Windows themes. Add other ones in. I make all my systems default to the MCE 'Royale' theme, because hey, it's nicer. You can increase the maximum TCP connections (instead of patching later); you can enable the uxtheme.dll patch to support non-signed themes. Change default preferences, like disabling theme support entirely, turning off animated menus, setting the default folder view, and others. Remove services you don't need.

I've managed to strip down a 680 MB XP Pro SP2 disc to a 150 MB SP3 disc; at the same time, I configured it for an automated install (with the exception of choosing partitions), I added custom themes, I added drivers for the ethernet cards, video cards, and sound cards I use (including drivers for Parallels and VMWare), and bam. A Windows CD customized precisely for you.

You also save a HUGE amount of space on-disk after install, the install takes less time (a timed test in a VM went from 1.5 hours to 10 minutes).

It's an amazing little tool, and I can't compliment the author enough, other than by letting people know.

Of course, if you have Vista but want to fit it onto a CD instead of filling a DVD, you can check out vLite also. Strip out all the crap you don't need, and save a ton of time.

Ah, but you CAN slipstream SP1 now.

I just looked at the XP sister tool page and they have support for the latest XP SP3 refresh so it's a good bet they'll support it in 1.4.5 final.

well, nothing at all. Microsoft have a Windows XP Embedded designed to run on small thin clients devices. These devices typically have very underpower CPUs and hardly no hard disk. It stands to reason they could do a similar thing for Vista.
You could always trim your own XP/Vista down with http://www.vlite.net/about.html vLite (okay, got bored of trying to get the link formatted in the new inline editor.)

Maybe it's time for Damn Small Windows.

> yah it's a memory hog

Personally I think the memory is there to be used... if you want to run a barebones OS and use your 2GB for nothing, go ahead... ;)

> but that's compositing window managers for you, including Compiz

Compiz and beryl generally run a bit snappier (not to mention with more effects) on most hardware, but not all video cards support it. I'm running a two-year-old Dell Inspiron with a 256MB ATI graphics card and I've never been able to figure out how to get compiz support, but Aero ran without a hitch from the moment I installed it.

> Most problems are with backwards-compatibility, which you shouldn't really expect anyway

I've heard a lot of complaints about this, but I play old games, run emulators and virtual machines, use outdated software suites, peripherals, etc. and the only "problem" I've had is an occasional incompatibility with Aero (not Vista itself). Not to mention you can run an old program in Vista with compatibility settings for any Windows version back to 95.

> The whole OS is more mature; it just seems to be more complete than XP which had half the OS tacked on in service packs.

Agreed. The network settings, mobility center, audio management, speech recognition, preference windows, etc. all seem much more integrated and natural than XP's patched-together menus and dialogs.

> Yeah it's bloated but I have the hard drive space.

Who doesn't have 10GB to give their operating system? If that's honestly such a big deal then a hard drive upgrade is definitely in order. Or the serious tweaker can try out vLite.

I'm no Microsoft fanboy (in fact I'd take OSX over Windows any day, if not for the $$$) but Vista really isn't the mess that everyone makes it out to be. Like past versions of Windows, it just works. No fiddling with packages, no tweaking common drivers, no console commands. And the panic about driver incompatibility is really a thing of the past - almost all manufacturers have updated drivers for Vista.

Ever heard of nLite or vLite? They let you build your [u]own[/u] XP/Vista ISOs with update, service pack and additional driver integration as well as literally every customization you can think of. So, yes, this is nothing exactly new, and I'd rather prefer my own customization.

It's been done.

If you ask me, Microsoft should provide guidance on stripping stuff out of all its OSes to value-added resellers and to corporate accounts who need them. The same guidance should be available to the geek/hobbiest public on an "as is, unsupported" basis so people could play around. Such guidance should include how to install security patches to stripped systems.

Even better if they provided a toolkit to selectively add or remove components like networking, printing, web browsing, or what-not that are are part of a "core user OS" but not part of the very heart of Windows.

"XYZ Appliance based on Microsoft Windows Vista" or "XYZ Appliance based on Microsoft Windows XP" would make a great VM environment and in some situations, a great hardware appliance.

"davidwr's custom-stripped XP" might make a good core for my next project.

vLite

If you want to alleviate Vista annoyances, and you MUST use Vista, use vLite and make a custom Vista install image with ONLY the stuff you want on it. I just did this yesterday and it works wonders. Vista doesn't feel like a slug anymore.

Thats pretty easy actually...use http://www.vlite.net/Vlite

Maybe you should try Vlite from the maker of Nlite. With Vlite you can remove unnecessary features from Vista and also integrate drivers, tweak settings etc. Notice that this only useful for a new installation of Vista as you making a whole new installation media.

Actually if you use vLite to trim the Vista install CD you can cut out quite a lot of the stuff (plus fit it onto a 700MB CD). vLite

I removed 5GB of bloat (how language files can take 800MB is beyond me, a .dll per language???) and theres a few tweaks like disable UAC. When Microsoft are forced to remove every major app from their OS, and I can strip out unuseful-to-me features I will buy their OS. Uhm no not really, at least not until they stop polluting the protocols.

http://www.vlite.net/