Slashdot Mirror
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."
... unless and until it removes the draconian, RIAA- and MPAA-friendly DRM from the OS, and returns control of the PC back to the user who bought it.
But what if there are some things you want to load (say, DirectX 10) which you can't load in Gentoo? Are you supposed to rejoice in the fact you got to choose which components you wanted in your functionality-lacking OS install? Being able to customise an OS install is not as important as being able to use that OS to perform tasks you want. I can't use Gentoo because it doesn't run the applications I need (Adobe, Office, games). Not that I'm knocking Gentoo, I just don't see how your argument is anything but fanboyish nose-cutting/face-spiting posturing, desperately trying to ilicit "hear hear"s from the rest of the slashdot crowd.
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.
I do not have this kind of time anymore. The other day I received an e-mail from a friend. He wanted to know how he could get the absolute most out of his hardware for a very specific game he plays (World of Warcraft). I began with recommending plain old Linux and then installing wine and trying to run it. But I soon realized how hopeless this would be as I think he has a nice ATI card that once was top of the line five months ago.
So I told him to get a fresh XP install and not install anything else on it. Perhaps this MinWin or core of a Windows will satisfy him? Perhaps it will also satisfy me in finding simplicity in an operating system that can run my games and programs that are only for win32?
My work here is dung.
I don't think it's fair to call Vista a bloated operating system. You look at the list of crud that this tool removes; that's not Operating System, that's application crud that should be optional in the install anyway.
Just because MS wants it to be part of the compulsory install (all the better to monopolise your computer and online profile) doesn't make it part of the operating system. I mean, come on, what makes MSN Installer part of an OS?
Yeah, right. A big company's approach to all difficult problems is to imagine a solution for them and create a name for that solution. Problem? Vista is bloated. Solution: create the name "MinWin."
If Microsoft wanted to reduce Vista's bloat, they'd just reduce it.
They might, if they had any good faith about it, analyze and SQA vLite and license it or offer and approved version. Or structure the present Vista so that it installs a reasonable core and allows you to "opt in" to the extra stuff.
What's likely happening is a turf battle between all the managers that want their bloat in the product, are threatened by any suggestions that it be trimmed, and will fight it's being trimmed to the death--or at least for a couple of years when they move on to their next assignment.
If MinWin happens at all, what will happen is that they'll trim Vista by 20% and then pack on 100% of new bloat.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
3 years running AVG: $0
3 years running Ad-aware, Spybot, and CCleaner: $0
Now, I don't run Vista either, but saying it's cheaper to buy an iMac is a little disingenuous.
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
The GUI is definitely part of the GUI, or were you trying to argue otherwise? The OS is in this case Microsoft Windows Vista in it's entirety, not some arbitrary pieces of it. With Aero being enabled if possible automatically by the OS, and being an order of magnitude more resource consuming than for example OSX and Compiz, the OS is indeed much more sluggish than XP or some others. And let us not talk about the performance benefits of DX10 over DX9. Review and gamesites show time and time again Vista with DX10 is slower when compared to the same game on the same machine with DX9, and the benefits are minimal. Even Microsofts own latest Flight Simulator which was to be a DX10 showcase performs better on XP, and is visually nearly the same (checkout the various FS forums for more anecdotal evidence). Yes, Vista is better than XP in some aspects, but as a whole the OS just offers less than XP for many if not most. The pros are mostly pros on paper where the cons are immeadeately obvious, even for normal users.
What I'd be interested in seeing is benchmarks for desktop and 3d performance. It's all very well saying "ooooh look at how much shit it removes!" if it has no actual impact on performance. Most of the things it appears this thing removes will have barely any impact on hard disc space, cpu cycles or memory usage - MSN Installer for instance; removing that will free up a couple of megabytes of hard-disc space at best.
Anyone got any useful benchmarks?
throw new NoSignatureException();
And you can say this because you're a graphics/games developer? My web site is http://sponeil.net/, and I know for a fact you're wrong. I've even written an article in a book published by nVidia. How do you think nVidia demos their new features when a new version of their video card comes out? Do you think they shipped the GeForce 8800 and said "Sorry folks, but you'll have to wait a year before you can even see it run a demo showing off any of the new features"?
When you see a game that supports both DirectX and OpenGL, they run at the same frame rate. OpenGL might be 1FPS slower on Windows because Microsoft won't allow OpenGL to use full-screen exclusive mode. They made that choice because they were going out of their way to sink OpenGL.
The only real reason NOT to use OpenGL is that ATI has crappy OpenGL drivers. They've been working to fix them, but I'm not sure where they are right now.