My super-stripped 0.5 GB XP Installation

[Guest Deeswift]

Anyone else used nLite? I just made a custom Windows XP SP2 disc with all the shite removed, including Windows Media Player (still kept WMP 6.4 though), most of the services I always disable can be disabled automatically *Edit 1 -- I recommend to leave the services alone, stick with Black Viper's registry patches or make a custom one like I did*, there's no Messenger, Netmeeting, MSN, Windows Games, Windows defragmenter, crap wallpaper, etc. Some of these things are usually hard or impossible to remove. Also I was able to do most of the tweaks I normally do. The end result is a Windows installation about 40% of the normal size, a faster installation process, a cleaner OS and more drive space retained.

 

I'd recommend nLite to anyone who tweaks their XP and hates all the extra Microsoft rubbish that clutters the system and uses drive space. If you try it, you need the latest 0.99.7 beta version (in self-extracting format) and the ALTERNATIVE Runtime files. Get them at the nLite website.

 

Linkage to the site:

 

http://nuhi.msfn.org/nlite.html

 

Edit 2: If you remove Windows Media Player (the latest version included in XP), you can keep the old version (6.4) which is still lurking in XP. This is a good thing, it's basically a stripped down version without all the extra bulk and resource hogging. Keeping 6.4 apparently retains WMA/WMV format support, but I found out that this info is wrong. A bug in the software? I'm not sure, but I found the way around it is to install WMP 10 Codecs which are easily found by searching Google. Everything WMP related now works fine and Foobar2000 is happy and will play WMA files.

[Guest Deeswift]

Ninja XP!

 

Here's what I did for the nLite disc...

 

 

 

Pages

 

Integrate a Service Pack

Remove Components

Unattended Setup

Integrate Hotfixes

Options and Tweaks

Create a Bootable ISO

 

Components

 

Remove Applications

 

Accessibility Options

Briefcase

ClipBook Viewer

Games

Internet Games

Pinball

Screensavers

 

Remove Drivers

 

Display Adapters (old)

IBM Thinkpad

ISDN

Modems

MultiFunctional

Multi-port serial adapters

Printers

Scanners

Sound Controllers

 

Remove Internet Utilities

 

Client for Netware Networks

Communication tools

FrontPage Extensions

Internet Information Services (IIS)

MSN Explorer

Netmeeting

Peer-to-Peer

Synchronization Manager

Windows Messenger

 

Remove Multimedia

 

Images and Backgrounds

Media Center

Mouse Cursors

Movie Maker

Music Samples

Speech Support

Tablet PC

Windows Media Player

 

Remove Operating System Options

 

Desktop Cleanup Wizard

File and Settings Wizard

Framework

Manual Install and Upgrade

MS Agent

Search Assistant

Tour

 

Remove Language Support

 

Arabic

Baltic

Central Europe

Chinese Simplified

Chinese Traditional

Cyrillic

Georgian

Greek

Hebrew

Indian

Japanese

Korean

Thai

Turkish

Vietnamese

Multilanguage Support (LANG dir)

 

Kept Files

msconfig.exe

scrnsave.scr

 

Additional Removed Files

blastcln.exe

clock.avi

bliss.jpg

 

Set Options:

 

Desktop,Taskbar & Startmenu

 

Hide My Documents icon from the desktop

Hide My Network Places icon from the desktop

Remove My Documents from Start Menu

Remove Set Program Access and Defaults from Start menu

Remove Windows Catalog from Start Menu

 

Experimental

 

Disable Page File

Disable paging of kernel and core-os

Disable Prefetch-Cache

 

Explorer

 

Advanced Search: preconfigure options

Disable Autorun

Disable Prefix: Shortcut to

Recycle Bin: make renamable

Remove Internet Explorer icon on desktop

Remove Shared Documents

Show All Files And Folders

Show Statusbar in all windows

 

Security & Privacy

 

Clear most recently opened documents list on logoff

Disable and Remove Documents List from Start Menu

Disable Driver Update Internet prompt

Disable Last accessed Timestamp on files

Disable Simple File Sharing

Disable User Process Tracking

Remove Alexa Spyware

 

Speed Tweaks

 

Classic Control Panel

Disable Automatically search for network folders and Printers

Disable Optimize harddisk when idle

Disable Warn on low disk space

Do not cache thumbnails

Use Windows classic folders / No Tasks Sidepanel

 

Visual Effects

 

Disable: Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing

Disable: Fade or slide menus into view

Disable: Fade or slide ToolTips into view

Disable: Fade out menu items after clicking

Disable: Show shadows under menus

Disable: Show shadows under mouse pointer

Disable: Show translucent selection rectangle

Disable: Show windows contents while dragging

Disable: Slide open combo boxes

Disable: Slide taskbar buttons

Disable: Use a background image for each folder type

Disable: Use common tasks in folders

Disable: Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop

 

 

Additional info:

 

This is a fully unnattended installation disk -- no user intervention is required once the disc is loaded in the drive, so no need to fill in any setup details & user accounts. Very cool.

 

Total size on CD is 261 MB. This includes streamlined SP2, RVMUpdate Pack v1.05 FULL, and 12 additional hotfixes (all security fixes up to date). Original size before nLite was 576 MB. For those of you who are as bad at mathematics as me, that's an XP installation some 315 MB lighter.

 

Total install time (get this) = 7 minutes exactly. Bearing in mind that I have a fast, Athlon64 machine, OS fresh installs took 10 minutes, so now it's 3 minutes faster. I could make this disc lighter and the installation process faster, but as there's still a few options I wasn't sure whether or not to disable, so I stayed on the safe side. Security Center can be removed, as can a ton of other stuff. You can include your registry tweaks, add your own default theme (I was trying to find out how to install Black XP as default, which would be super fresh, but I was too lazy to read the guide on it). You can add drivers, extra hotfixes to keep SP2 up to date, and a whole load of other features I've barely touched on. So... 9/10 for this software. There's a few minor bugs but nothing to be bothered about, just read the sticky threads on the MSFN nLite forums. Best thing is, it's free software and the latest version runs on alternative runtimes without having to install .NET Framework.

 

Sounds like I'm trying to sell you all something, but check this little program out if you have your own XP disc.

 

EDIT: WTF am I talking about -- it supports any Windows OS, not just XP, I'm pretty sure of it.

[Guest $mooth]

Nice one Deeswift, I now have something to do on Sunday!

[Clownstyle]

Damn! This is just what i want.. Any chance you could send me a copy of ninjaxp!!?

[Guest Deeswift]

Clown I can't do it because this one here already contains my account password, CD key etc. Being an unnattended installation disc, all the details and settings are done before the ISO is made. I can make you an almost identical disc but without the user info, unless of course you wanted to tell me your details, but then I'd know your password, etc! Not that I'd do anything with it, of course! Problem is, you might need some vital application / service / driver / blah, and this disc was built for my needs. You'd be welcome to try it but I reckon you'd be better off creating your own custom disc. It's so stupidly easy to do, but quite enjoyable.

 

Only thing I would suggest is try to read up just a little bit before you burn the bootable ISO (which is created by the nLite application itself, btw. Nice touch). Seeing as I've been reading about nLite and what not to remove for the past few days, I think I can help you out quite a bit if you're not sure about removing something, but to be honest the program gives you a good idea with pop-up tooltips and descriptions of each thing as you go along. Too easy!

 

Oh shit, just remembered I need to send you those other discs I promised before. Forgot all about it. I have to also send Mixo a CD this week so I'll get on the case.

[Guest Deeswift]

Heh, just laughing at how fast this is booting up. That blue XP progress bar, I don't get to see it now, it flashes up and goes to the next screen before it's even moved. This is dope.

[Clownstyle]

Clown I can't do it because this one here already contains my account password, CD key etc. Being an unnattended installation disc, all the details and settings are done before the ISO is made. I can make you an almost identical disc but without the user info, unless of course you wanted to tell me your details, but then I'd know your password, etc! Not that I'd do anything with it, of course! Problem is, you might need some vital application / service / driver / blah, and this disc was built for my needs. You'd be welcome to try it but I reckon you'd be better off creating your own custom disc. It's so stupidly easy to do, but quite enjoyable.

 

Only thing I would suggest is try to read up just a little bit before you burn the bootable ISO (which is created by the nLite application itself, btw. Nice touch). Seeing as I've been reading about nLite and what not to remove for the past few days, I think I can help you out quite a bit if you're not sure about  removing something, but to be honest the program gives you a good idea with pop-up tooltips and descriptions of each thing as you go along. Too easy!

 

Oh shit, just remembered I need to send you those other discs I promised before. Forgot all about it. I have to also send Mixo a CD this week so I'll get on the case.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Cool Dee not to worry - Im just being lazy!! Ill have to take a look the weekend.

 

I had forgot about those cds myself!! Im not in any rush for them really...

 

Is there anything you need?? You have sent me quite a bit of stuff now.!

[Guest Deeswift]

Can't think of anything off hand, I can usually find anything I need, but cheers. No need for anything in return.

[Guest Deeswift]

The MSFN forum is the best place to find out everything about nLite. Forgot to post a link earlier.

 

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=89

[Clownstyle]

I installed my stripped down version of xp last night. Had only a few problems!!

 

I decided to perinstall my drivers - Bad idea!! It didnt work out so well and i ended up installing from my drivers cd.

 

I was also missing a dll i had to download as i kept popping up when windows started. Other than that all is ok....

 

My windows is super quick now!! You know the spec of my pc Dee but i see the bar go across twice on windows bootup - Not really bothering me just wondering if there is anyway i can get it quicker.

 

When i bootup the pc it says no fast track driver installed?? I dont even know what this means. - My raid drive is installed and working.

 

I havent messed with memory timings - Could this be the answer?

[Guest Deeswift]

No, your memory timings are 2-2-2-5, same as mine (basically the fastest timings possible!). You shouldn't need to mess with those because your PC was built by OCUK, and I presume they know exactly how to set up your Corsair XL RAM (or any RAM that uses Samsung TCCD chips). You could always double check to make sure the command rate is set to 1T, not 2T. 2T setting really affects performance but gives better stability. We all know that Samsung TCCD can achieve 1T performance very easily though. If you wanna know how to do anything BIOS or overclock related, just give us a shout. All you gotta do to check command rate settings is go into the BIOS (hit Delete as your PC fires up) and go to the Cell Menu page. In there are your RAM timings, including command rate settings. Yours will probably be listed as 2-2-5-2 as you're on a MSI board with Award BIOS v6, which is the same as mine. Sometimes the numbers are listed differently, but this is basically 2-2-2-5 which is the normal way of reading it. the first "2" is CAS latency (the most critical setting which affects RAM), and the "5" is the tRAS setting.

 

I could have told you about integrating drivers, and how it's not a great idea. There's a thread somewhere on MSFN about it... I also think it's a bad idea to integrate drivers anyway because they soon become out dated, especially graphics drivers.

 

I can't understand why you aren't getting a faster bootup though. Perfectdisk makes a little bit of a difference as it rearranges the boot files and places them at the very start of the disc. If you use PD, make sure you right-click each drive and set the Properties to defrag both System and Page files. Do an "offline" defrag, which will defrag system files before Windows boots up, then open PD and do a Smart Placement defrag. Also, my motherboard drivers make a difference (it boots faster when these are installed. Make sure your drivers are all up to date by using MSI's Live Update 3. You can get new BIOS and drivers for everything. I just use it for BIOS and motherboard drivers though (current nForce driver is v5.03).

 

Other than that, it could be a number of things that slow your boot time down, including anything that's connected to your PC that the OS has to recognise at startup... a modem, USB devices, etc.

[Clownstyle]

What about my second hdd - Could this slow things down? Removing it is not really an option tho as its my storage drive.

 

What about partitioning? I havent had chance to install pdisk on the fresh install yet...

[Guest Deeswift]

Yes, I'd imagine it could slow things down, not sure though. I think you might improve boot time if your OS is on a small partition, say 5-10 GB, then all that has to be read is a small part of the hard disk.

[Clownstyle]

Yes, I'd imagine it could slow things down, not sure though. I think you might improve boot time if your OS is on a small partition, say 5-10 GB, then all that has to be read is a small part of the hard disk.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Yea.. I tried this before but i seemed to get all the programs i wanted to put on would get installed to C:/ by default --- Anyway to change this?

[Guest Deeswift]

What programs? Can't you just manually install them to another drive partition? Sorry if I misunderstaood...

[Clownstyle]

What programs? Can't you just manually install them to another drive partition? Sorry if I misunderstaood...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yea but thats ANNOYING!! haha

[Guest Deeswift]

You can change the default install path but it's not recommended. I have done it and it screwed things up bad for a while. If you do it this way, make sure you do it after a fresh OS install and before you load your programs. Otherwise it's a case of typing "E" or "D" or whatever, instead of leaving it "C". Come on man, it ain't that annoying!

 

I'd say the best option is to leave your apps on the same drive as the OS though. I used to have 8 partitions, which is great for organization and ease of maintenance (defragging), but at the end of the day your hard drive is working harder when it has to read from another partition (usually passing over a few gigabytes of free space and also another partition with the page file. My strategy now is to have C as the OS and program files drive (keep it as clean and clutter free as possible), then put the page file on D (needs to be as close to the start of the disc as you can get it), then put games, audio and video files on drive E. These are not things you'd want to defrag often. There's 50 GB of music files on my E drive, along with about 30 GB in games, then about 20 GB in video files. Having to defrag these along with the OS would be a royal pain in the ass, so there's no way they'd ever be put on the C drive. As I don't use too many large applications (except Photoshop) there's not much problem sticking these on drive C. Also it saves typing a different default install path, although I do keep any apps in a "Program Files II" folder rather than the regular "Program Files". In that folder are applications which I rarely need to use, along with all the Microsoft junk.

 

I'm straying off the point here... basically though, either change the default install path at the beginning of a fresh OS install or stop being lazy and just type a new location in!

[sasquatch]

LOL!

 

"search assistant (5.55mb)

that annoying animated dog in the search window"

 

[sasquatch]

ok, where can i download all the latest hotfixes from?

 

bloody unavigateable microsoft site

[Guest Deeswift]

Yeah, that's funny.

 

Sasquatch, if you make an XP disc with nLite, I recommend not touching any of the Services, leave them as they are and disable them later if you need to. Also, don't bother integrating any drivers.

 

You gotta be careful not to remove certain things. If you're unsure, ask me, or just leave it alone. Best thing to do though is hit the nLite forum and read up a little before you make the disc. There's some useful sticky threads and stuff on what not to remove.

[sasquatch]

i've removed all the things i know i can do without (e.g all internet related stuff) and left most other things (eg all the services) in.

 

this is looking to be a very cool program, now just need those hotfixes...

[Guest Deeswift]

ok, where can i download all the latest hotfixes from?

 

bloody unavigateable microsoft site

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

For hotfixes go here and get the FULL version of v1.05:

 

http://ryanvm.net/msfn/updatepack.html

 

Also, look for these fixes on the Microsoft site:

 

KB867282

KB873333

KB885250

KB888113

KB890047

KB891781

 

That will bring you bang up to date.

 

I gotta go out to my bro's house in a sec. Back later. Good luck! I'll be here to help later on tonight, from about 9pm onwards I think.

[Guest Deeswift]

http://support.microsoft.com/

 

Yeah, the hotfixes can be a bitch to find. Just hit the site linked above and search for those hotfixes I just listed. Use the Search function in the top right corner.

[Steve]

You'll also want KB888302. The update packs on that site seem to be down for the time being too.

 

A quick way to find the MS updates you need is just to search for the KB number here: -

 

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search....en&categoryid=7

[Guest Deeswift]

Which is essentially the same thing as I posted, just use either URL and use the search box in the top right corner of the page.

 

When searching for the update you mentioned, KB88302...

 

Sorry, no results were found.

 

You sure there shouldn't be another number in that patch name?

 

When I just did my latest install (today), I made sure I had all the patches, nothing was left out. I used SP2 on a fresh copy of XP Pro "gold" (no service packs added), streamlined the full Service Pack 2, included RyanVM's v1.05 bundle and also included the rest of the hotfixes released since v1.05. Windows Update reports no more fixes are needed or available.

 

What is the patch that you mentioned for? Something we've just stripped out of XP? Heh.