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Software Tool Strips Windows Vista To Bare Bones
Preedit writes "A free download that can cut Windows Vista's gargantuan footprint by half or more is developing a big following on the Internet. vLite is a configuration tool that lets users automatically delete a lot of unnecessary Vista components — such as Windows Media Player and MSN installer — to pare the OS down to a reasonable size.
The software is catching on. An InformationWeek story notes that a forum that asks users to suggest new features has drawn nearly 50,000 page views.
Meanwhile, Microsoft officials have themselves conceded that Vista is "bloated" and are developing the next version of Windows on a core called MinWin, which is smaller than Vista by an order of magnitude."
It's much faster than XP, uses your memory and other resources far more intelligently, and the performance benefits of DX10 over DX9 (even with some DX10 trickery involved) are things you simply can't find in any other OS out there, open source or otherwise. That's just an FYI.
MinWin is a non-graphical kernel that doesn't do much more than boot up and host a webserver. It's not exactly a full functional operating system, so yes it's going to be considerably smaller.
Point is that by getting the cruft out of the kernel customization will be easier and the result probably still overall smaller.
Amazing ideas these MS boys have these days. Imagine an operating system with a small, even micro, kernel. To this the user can add the operating system toys that he needs around that kernel, resulting in a lean, mean operating system that does what he needs and nothing more.
I hear some crazy Finnish guy had a similar idea once but nobody listened to him.
That depends if they Hurd him.
Even if they did, it might not Mach any difference.
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There are 11 types of people. Those who understand binary, those who don't and those who are sick of this lame joke.