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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."
This software has been out for a while as a beta I have used it and it works well. I haven't used the newer version yet but I assume based on nLite that it can only get better from there.
This tool works by modifying the original install disk and you make your own more compact version of the installer. It does not work by modifying your currently installed OS.
That's funny, I used it on my uncle's 2.2Ghz Core 2 Duo (0.2 Ghz faster than my laptop, and they both have 2GB of RAM), and it was a pig compared to XP. Taking up 15GB of HD space and half my video memory for a fancy 3D interface what is essentially a file and program manager isn't what I call intelligent use of resources either.. even Microsoft seem to have noticed that, if you actually read the article..
which is totally what she said
The same people also have a tool called nLite, which does the same stuff for Windows XP. It works well for stuff like slipstreaming SATA drivers, but I've had a few problems when I used more advanced features like removing un-needed Windows components -- when installing stuff like .NET from Windows Update, Windows required me to put in the XP install disc, which obviously is non-workable for user desktops.
To be fair, that was an older version (1.3?), and they've had a couple of releases since then.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
A free software tool that promises to strip down the Windows Vista operating system -- which even some Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) officials have called "bloated" -- to a minimalist state is attracting big interest on the Internet.
vLite, created by developer Dino Nuhagic, automatically removes a number of non-essential Windows Vista components in order to pare the OS's heavy footprint by half or more.
vLite allows users to preselect numerous Vista features for automatic removal prior to installing the OS on their personal computers. Among them: Windows Media Player, Windows Photo Viewer, MSN Installer, Wallpapers, SlideShow, Windows Mail and other utilities.
"It's not just about hard disk space. There is also an increase in OS responsiveness and you don't have to tolerate all kinds of things you don't use," said Nuhagic, in an e-mail to InformationWeek explaining why he launched the project.
vLite, however, isn't for the technically timid. The software warns that the changes it imposes on Vista are "permanent, so be sure in your choice."
Nuhagic said he doesn't know exactly how many downloads vLite has seen -- but a forum that asks users to submit suggestions for the next version has drawn almost 50,000 views.
The emergence of tools like vLite reflect the frustrations voiced by many computer users over Vista's bulk and resource requirements.
Loaded with an abundance of features and tools designed to ease navigation and bolster security, the Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Vista both require a whopping 15 GBs of available disk space for installation. By contrast, Windows XP -- Vista's predecessor -- requires 1.5 GB of available space for installation of the Professional version.
With Vista bearing a footprint 10 times larger than XP's, even Microsoft officials are expressing concerns about Windows' growing waistline. Speaking last year at the University of Illinois, Microsoft distinguished engineer Eric Traut said the operating system had become bloated.
"A lot of people think of Windows as this large, bloated operating system. That may be a fair characterization," said Traut.
In response to such concerns, Traut said Microsoft has adopted a new, modular approach to OS development that will yield more streamlined products beginning with Windows 7 -- a successor to Windows Vista that's expected to be available some time in 2010.
The approach calls for Windows developers to use a bare bones version of the OS -- dubbed MinWin -- as the building block for their next programming effort. MinWin is built on about 25 MBs of data -- making it smaller than Windows Vista by an order of magnitude.
Until it's ready, there's always programs like vLite.
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
nLite let you tune the core OS install - exposing uninstall options the 'default' installer, letting you fold in service packs and patches, drivers, pre-sorting license keys, users, and custom settings. When you get done, you can do a clean slate install and end up with something that won't take another four hours of tweaking to get where you wish was a starting point directly from the ISO.
I started using nLite to build an XP distro that would run on a CF card. Running minimal services, I noticed how much faster it was too -- became the install for my gaming rig. Space was also a concern when building VMWare images, so starting with a mean clean install was a godsend. Granted, it took a couple tries - it is very easy to kill off a critical bit when you do this sort of chainsaw sculpture to the OS. Once you get it right, it is a fantastic (free!) tool. It is wonderful to see the same technology available to Vista.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Add a gig of RAM ($20-$30) and you will notice a market improvement in Vista performance. I bought a $300 Vista laptop computer back in August and added a gig of RAM. Dual-booted XP and Vista for awhile and wound up getting rid of the XP partition because there was no noticeable difference in performance.
Yes, Vista loves the RAM, but the other part of the equation is the 512M of RAM you have (which is minuscule by today's standards) is also being shared by the video card. By default, at least on my machine, it would share up to 128M with the video card, that's 25% of your RAM!
The unwashed masses can just install Ubuntu. I was a doubter until I tried it a month ago -- it installed in 10 minutes painlessly and everything Just Works.
Something is wrong then because I have a low-end Sempron notebook with 1.5gb RAM, vista home and deletion is almost instantaneous...
Vista isn't perfect, but it's better than most of the (uninformed or lacking in experience) critics give it credit for.
I've not used Gentoo, but if you want to load what you want and not load what you don't then a source-based distribution has a lot of advantages. Try running ./configure --help on one of the packages you use frequently. There are typically a large range of options and distributing every possible combination in binary form is impossible. By selecting the ones you want, you can often eliminate several dependencies (which have their own dependencies and so on).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Sure others have pointed out that I could add some ram and get my performance back, but I managed to get a major boost in performance for free (and in less time) by installing Ubuntu.
From the AVG free version license: http://free.grisoft.com/doc/98/us/frt/0
So: http://www2.grisoft.com/doc/buy/us/crp/0 2 years AVG Antivirus: $39
- or -
2 years AVG Internet Security: $70
So, 3 years of AVG Internet security is another $140.00. - total is $1,040.00
http://www.macmall.com/macmall/families/new_promo~dp~7349100~family~macbook~promo~1.asp Apple MacBook: $1,019.00
The Apple is cheaper over 3 or more years.
Kevin Smith on Prince
Just to help keep your viewpoint balanced... there's negative features in Vista as well (especially the 64-bit version).
Here's the ones that I've run into as being major issues in my 4-5 months with Vista. There's others, but I either haven't personally run into them, or they're not particularly painful.
1) Vista removed support for horizontal or vertical span modes with a multi-monitor setup. (well, more of they changed things up so that it's impossible for drivers supporting that to be written) If you're not aware of these modes, horizontal span mode for example allowed your software to treat your collection of displays as one really wide display... so a full-screen racing or flight sim would span all your displays not just one. XP supported this. Vista doesn't. Meaning that if I want to have a decent racing sim setup I've got to go back to XP. This is an issue with both 32 and 64 bit versions. There's a lot of speculation that it's related to the integrated DRM stuff Vista includes.
2) The 64-bit version of Vista removes backwards compatability for 16-bit applications. I dunno about you, but sometimes I get nostalgic for the games I grew up with... and some of those games are good enough that horrible dated graphics don't matter.
3) The 64-bit version of Vista requires you to specify EVERY TIME YOU BOOT that you want to use unsigned drivers. (You used to be able to specify in the mbr to always use them, but MS released at least 2 critical updates that disabled that) Perhaps this isn't an issue for the average Joe, but there's a decent number of aps out there that I use that utilize an unsigned driver. Then there's beta releases of video card drivers and the like.
Long story short, I'm currently awaiting a new harddrive that's going to be a XP drive so that I can continue to use the functionality I should have. Vista may have improvements, but to me it's offset by the functionality they removed.
As to why I'm not moving back to XP entirely? 64-bit Vista is actually a usable 64-bit OS. (64-bit XP never was really supported by hardware manufacturers) And there's DX10 which will, sometime, maybe, be a reason.
Rivatuner can plot a nice graph of local and non-local video memory in use, among a zillion of other cool things.
Funny. This article appeared on the top of the Google News page. Now Slashdot has been slashdotted!
FYI: Many people still use Telnet, and many other features removed. It isn't just hated because of a large footprint on the memory, but because useful/used tools have been removed. And not always because they are deemed "obsolete" (Video Analog support removed due to digital rights).
/boggle
... running Slackware on my desktop ... I just don't see the point in dissing Microsoft for something that isn't real)
Bullshit. It isn't installed by default, but can easily be activated:
Use software explorer or Click Start, Control Panel, Programs, and then Turn Windows Features on or off. In the list, scroll down and select Telnet Client. Click OK to start the installation.
And if analog video support is removed then why does the S-Video port (analog) on my nVidia card still work?
Half of the items on the list you gave were BS anyways. Gopher support? Please. (and no, I'm not a raving MS fan
Consumers seem to like all the bells and whistles. To make sure that the consumers have lots, all the PC vendors ship their systems with gigs and gigs of various stuff. I would pay extra to get a clean system and clean install discs without all the extra *hit!
Windows has brow beaten you into thinking that you need crazy amounts of RAM for an OS when in fact thats just BS. I've got Linux happily running on a 128M machine and I don't think I've seen it thrash the drive yet even when using open office.
Any OS that needs 1 Gig of RAM to run properly is a bloated , badly written POS which should never have escaped from the lab.
Doesn't the AMD 64 spec drop 16 bit support when running in 64 bit mode?
Also, most games I have tried to run that were 16 bit had trouble running in Win95, and more so in 98, and then even more in XP. I am suprised that there are 16 but games that will run on vists32 but not in DOSbox.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Alright, semi off topic here, but the best explanation i've ever read for the 3GB Ram ceiling is here....
Well worth a read.
Not really what you're asking for, but somewhere up above in the chain of comments somebody posted screenshots of XP before and after having been reduced by the XP version of this utility. I don't want to go find it again, but it about halved the memory footprint of a fresh install. I can only imagine that Vista has more to trim off than XP.
- or -
2 years AVG Internet Security: $70
So, 3 years of AVG Internet security is another $140.00. - total is $1,040.00 Free as in Speech and Beer.
If there's a castle floating upside down in the sky, then there's a castle floating upside down in the sky.
That's not entirely true. There's a great deal of activity that occurs in virtual memory that is not bound discreetly to "actual memory". Particularly:
When an application loads, the lower segment of the address space is allocated to the kernel (which is shared between all programs). Next, space for application code is allocated, and then libraries are allocated. When instruction segments are needed, they get fetched from disk. Many libraries only load the resources in use at the time, making the physical footprint small. The virtual memory system must allocate virtual address space for the full library, regardless of the space space actually committed.
Thus, an application's virtual footprint may increase when the kernel, application, or library sizes increases. Changes to IPC, MMIO, and kernel buffers can further increase the size of the application. Furthermore, as an application consumes & releases resources, memory fragmentation increases the space still further.
Concerning Vista particularly, the introduction of Aero will artificially inflate the virtual footprint of any application. Why? Because applications use graphic card memory like a "virtual" frame buffer. This means that the MMIO or DMA channels used to talk to the graphics card allocate virtual address space. Thus, a 256 or 512 MB card will be reflected in the virtual memory usage but not in the "commit charge".
Finally, portions of virtual memory are "empty". Reasons for this range from gaps inserted between virtual memory pages, "memory holes", or dedicated (but unallocated) memory gaps. Virtual memory looks at the total range of address space, without considering how those gaps affect the overall footprint. The voids are effectively pointers that end up nowhere.
Dosbox is an x86 emulator that's specifically designed to run old games properly; clocks them down, provides a virtual soundblaster card (amoung others) and so on. Works great.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
1) Vista removed support for horizontal or vertical span modes with a multi-monitor setup
This is wrong. The Video driver subsystem in Vista is entirely different; however what you area referring to is a specific feature removed from the NVidia drivers.
So you have a couple of choices, use the Vista Dual View mode (if you only have one card) and run your game inside a Window instead of full screen (tell the game to remove the Window Border so it looks full screen). The game will play inside the WDDM Aero interface and actually be faster than running full screen and will also allow you to stretch it across all your displays without incident, even if they are varied resolutions, which XP couldn't do.
This is what people don't get or get stuck on, as XP didn't allow (easily) the ability to run 3D applications across multiple displays or video cards unless the application was running full screen and the applicaiton was designed to do so. The NVidia Span mode, was a semi-hack that allowed the display to act as one screen, but even it didn't have 100% support with games or a seamless desktop.
You can also just install the XP drivers, and Vista will turn off the WDDM subsystem and use the legacy video subsystem and the features provided by the MFR in the XP drivers work again. In other words, it runs JUST LIKE XP if you use the XP driver.
It kills me that people don't realize they can just install the XP driver in Vista, and the legacy subsystem is used, the same video subsystem that exists in XP, giving you the same EXACT performance as XP. Having the dual video subsystems and the transparent compatibility of being able to run both is a marvelous feature of Vista, as it works so well people don't realize it can do two entirely different Video subsystem and driver models. Having these legacy abilities is the reason Vista is a large install in terms of HD usage compared to XP.
It also kills me that people will turn off Aero with Vista WDDM drivers and complain about performance (since turning off Aero loses performance in Vista with WDDM). Leave the pretty glass on, things run faster!
PS The newest Vista WDDM drivers run about 10% faster than any XP driver in 99% of all games now, just in case anyone thinks that WDDM is a 'bad' thing. Also with WDDM, you can run multiple games in Windows with virtually no FPS loss in each game, due to the GPU scheduler and VRAM virtualization of WDDM. So if you run two copies of WoW or some other MMO at the same time, throw them in Windows inside Vista with Aero ON, and they will both running seamlessly, in fact even do the Expose' trick (3rd party utility) or Flip 3D, and watch both games play at the same time with virtually no FPS loss in either game compared to running just one copy of the game. (This is where Vista blows past the OpenGL Composer projects. Sure vista don't have a cute floating cube or wiggle windows, but when it comes to performance of 3D applications (not just video running) in the 3D composer, Vista is miles ahead, and miles ahead of OSX as well, since it doesn't do the OSX Composer's double buffering either.
2) The 64-bit version of Vista removes backwards compatability for 16-bit applications.
Technically the AMD64/EMT64 CPU design removes 16bit abilities when running in native 64bit mode. So from a 64bit OS, the CPU can switch to 32bit mode/hybrid, but can't drop to an emulated 16bit mode. Microsoft could have virtualized the 16bit subsystem, but why when you can run Virtual PC 2007 for free (ON ANY VERSION OF VISTA) and run even Native Win3.1 or DOS for 16bit legacy applications.
So you can't really put the blame on Vista 64bit here.
3) The 64-bit version of Vista requires you to specify EVERY TIME YOU BOOT that you want to use unsigned drivers
This is only for kernel level drivers. For example, the HD Controller or other non user mode driver. User mode drivers do NOT have to be signed, and 99% of devices use user mode drivers (ie Scanners, cameras, printers, etc.)
It's not just NVidia that supported horizontal span, ATI did as well.
This I realize; however, I remember that ATI was working on enabling this for Vista, but not sure of the status of that project.
NVidia has said several things 'couldn't' be done in Vista, and then ATI provides the feature and NVidia runs back to the drawing board with a me too version in their driver. This has been a large part of the driver fight NVidia and Microsoft have had, as NVidia keep not wanting to implement features, claiming technical reasons, when it is either them being stubborn or their hardware not performing well with the features enabled properly.
ATI having worked with the XBox 360 team have a bit more experience when it comes to unified shaders and how Vista handles video, since it is a lot like the 360. Sadly ATI's hardware hasn't been up to the level they wanted yet, and also since they have adhered to the DX10 and 10.1 specifications, their cards take a bit more of a performance hit than NVidia cards do since they are skipping some of the features and not using the mandated FSAA modes for DX10 - also another reason MS added this specifically for certification for DX10.1.
I'm not sure I can credit that it'll be faster running windowed than full screen. Everything I've ever dealt with runs slower windowed... and when I'm looking at running a racing sim at 3200x1200 performance is important. Do you have a source on this?
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/windows_vista_aero_glass_performance/page3.asp
I also have our internal tech lab results, and basically on older systems with 1gb or less than 2gb of RAM and 2003-2004 Video cards the FPS gain is about 3-7FPS, on newer systems with 2005/newer video the advantage can be more dramatic with a 4-28FPS gain.
This is running a mix of games from DOOM and Oblivion to MMOs like WoW and CoX, with only a couple of artificial benchmarks that can be forced to run Windowed. Also the systems range from a 2003 Laptop with NVidia 5600 Go to the latest Intel Quad Core with the top NVidia 8800.
I won't claim that 100% of the time running inside a Window is going to be faster for everyone or every system or every game. However, it is most of the time suprisingly, and I don't think even Microsoft anticipated this since Aero is turned off when running a game in full screen mode. Something they will need to readdress in Windows7.
Indeed. And there's a whole set of tools used by the enthusiast community that require such
This is true, but RivaTuner could rewrite their driver to snake through user mode to do the same thing. It truly isn't designed well for Vista, as its tools and optimzations are still XP sighted. (For example the 2D/3D overclocking settings that are moot on Vista)
There are also usually alternatives available to every utility, I can think of several Overclocking applicstions, including NVidia's own nTune that works fine with Vista 64.
Most of the utilities 'needlessly' use lower level drivers, and by them being re-written for user mode, Vista 64bit becomes more stable by forcing the developers to do the right thing.
Even during the Vista beta most utilties repackaged the drivers to work flawlessly on Vista 64bit. I ran into this with several CD/DVD Virtualization and Ripping tools and by the end of beta, DVD43 is the only one I can think of that doesn't work on Vista 64, and there are several alternatives to it.
So MS is simply lying about the host OS requirements for Virtual PC to avoid supporting the home versions?
Nope. MS never has said anything about the Home versions.
Here is where people get confused. Virtual PC 2005 Server requires and uses pieces of IIS. Since Home versions don't have IIS, it can't run Virtual PC 2005. (Virtual PC 2005 is technically the server version anyway.)
So instead there is Vitural PC 2007, that was designed