Windows 7 - VLite

[qwertyaas]

Has anyone tried to VLite their Windows 7 install? I heard that VLite treats W7 like Vista and does work although W7 is very 'picky' regarding what is removed.

I just want to remove some extras which take up space (similar to what I removed from Vista). Primarilty the Printer drivers which took up a couple GB in the Vista install. Has anyone tried this or those extras aren't as space consuming as Vista was?

On that topic, is anyone aware of how big the W7 Pro 64 install is? My current Vista Ult 64 windows folder is closing in on 24-25GB. W7 is around 14-16GB correct?

[Grentz]

My W7 Pro X64 windows folder is 11.7gb right now.

No idea on VLite with W7, have not tried it yet.

[bigdogchris]

HasStop. Fail.

Don't use vLite for what you are thinking of using it for. Those products are OK for adding drivers/Sp's, etc., but for the love of god do NOT reverse engineer an OS, the single most important piece of software on the computer.

[phide]

Sitting at around 11.4GB here.

Those products are OK for adding drivers/Sp's, etc., but for the love of god do NOT reverse engineer an OS by unless you work for Microsoft.
Removing printer drivers is hardly what I would call "reverse engineering".

[qwertyaas]

Sitting at around 11.4GB here.


Removing printer drivers is hardly what I would call "reverse engineering".

11.4GB, that's all. Wow.

And exactly. I am not removing services or core components (as many people tried to do while Vlite-ing Vista), I just prefer to remove the "bloated" from the OS. I highly doubt anyone needs nearly every printer driver installed on their OS. Especially when all it takes it a visit to the Manufacturers website to download the specific drivers. I don't need 1-2GB of space wasted on a 10MB driver needed for my specific printer.

I have Vlite-ed Vista and dropped down the install size by quite a few GB. Ran much better and never ran into a problem. Again, I didn't take away any core components or services. Just removed extra items such as Printer drivers, ease of access. Extras.

[bigdogchris]

Removing printer drivers is hardly what I would call "reverse engineering".Alright, I'll give you that ... in some cases like on Netbooks or small SSD's, even 1GB can be precious.

The problem is an attitude as a whole about removing items. People can get a little to 'clicky' in there and start pulling out items, then come here bitching about how an OS doesn't work or won't install. The tools are definitely only for those who know exactly what they are doing.

[qwertyaas]

Alright, I'll give you that ... in some cases like on Netbooks or small SSD's, even 1GB can be precious.

The problem is an attitude as a whole about removing items. People can get a little to 'clicky' in there and start pulling out items, then come here bitching about how an OS doesn't work or won't install. The tools are definitely only for those who know exactly what they are doing.

I agree with that - when people start to remove actual services and core components from the OS for a few MB here and there.

But for removing printer drivers, ease of access, hibernate (although this can be removed after the install), all it does is make the install lighter.

[MrF]

You have a better chance of finding the information you are looking for here:
http://www.msfn.org/board/vlite-f153.html

Edit:
The developer of VLite is not active and does not support it anymore, not even for Vista, what it was meant for.

[extide]

Viewing the properties on the windows folder will NOT give you an accurate size of the folder!! The folder size that the folder properties will display is actually HIGHER than the actual amount of space taken. This is because of the WinSxS folder, and the fact that almost every file in there is counted twice as the files exist in more than one place but only take up one spot on the hd!

[Joe Average]

A clean installation of Windows 7 Ultimate x64 will sit at about 9.1GB just for the OS itself when it's done - that's not counting the hibernation file or the page file either, that's just for everything on the drive minus those two files (I've done this so often I know the amounts by heart...).

vLite can be a useful tool IF... and that's a big "IF" there on purpose...
IF you learn about it and the specific quirks it has for operation compared to nLite (which is a snap to use). vLite works differently because Vista and Windows 7 are different, and dicking around with the WIM files is always a chance that something will break.

It's not perfect, but yes it's entirely possible to yank out a significant amount of stuff that's typically useless in most any situation - excess drivers (because you can integrate the specific ones you require for a given build), documentation (because help files rarely do), language files (I don't need all of 'em, just English), etc.

You can "trim the fat" somewhat and still have a 100% functional edition of Windows 7 and knock a few gigs off the installation size without issues, it happens all the time. Don't listen to the naysayers - it's your computer, fuck it up if you want. :)

YMMV...

[grayfox0124]

With the hard drives coming in laptops and desktops these days (usually more than 250GB) why would you even bother trying to remove drivers just to save maybe 3 or 4 gigs? It's not even worth the hassle ya know? If you're that worried about space, maybe you need something more than an 80GB drive :) lol

[Forceman]

With the hard drives coming in laptops and desktops these days (usually more than 250GB) why would you even bother trying to remove drivers just to save maybe 3 or 4 gigs? It's not even worth the hassle ya know? If you're that worried about space, maybe you need something more than an 80GB drive :) lol

SSD?

[Vashypooh]

11.4GB, that's all. Wow.

And exactly. I am not removing services or core components (as many people tried to do while Vlite-ing Vista), I just prefer to remove the "bloated" from the OS. I highly doubt anyone needs nearly every printer driver installed on their OS. Especially when all it takes it a visit to the Manufacturers website to download the specific drivers. I don't need 1-2GB of space wasted on a 10MB driver needed for my specific printer.

I have Vlite-ed Vista and dropped down the install size by quite a few GB. Ran much better and never ran into a problem. Again, I didn't take away any core components or services. Just removed extra items such as Printer drivers, ease of access. Extras.

My Windows 7 Pro RTM is at 10.3gb on a fully updated Os with all my programs installed.

[Mojo JoJo]

mine is a little over 8g with Vista Ultimate, so I don't know why you would need Vlite.

[Down8]

With the hard drives coming in laptops and desktops these days (usually more than 250GB) why would you even bother trying to remove drivers just to save maybe 3 or 4 gigs? It's not even worth the hassle ya know? If you're that worried about space, maybe you need something more than an 80GB drive :) lol
And, as mentioned above, netbooks with small HDDs.

[phide]

mine is a little over 8g with Vista Ultimate, so I don't know why you would need Vlite.
Considering a trimmed XP is 800-900 megs, 8-11GB is kind of big.

I personally wouldn't bother trying to slim an install on a desktop, but on a netbook, there's the potential for some major space savings there.

[Grentz]

Considering a trimmed XP is 800-900 megs, 8-11GB is kind of big.

I personally wouldn't bother trying to slim an install on a desktop, but on a netbook, there's the potential for some major space savings there.

That is trimming a LOT though. Always make sure you know your uses/needs before doing an install like that.

I have a TinyXP build that is great for games and old laptops, but it lacks a lot of just expected windows components that many apps need and many people might want to use.

[heatlesssun]

11 GB is quickly becoming nothing. We've got 2 TB drives on the way. For the average maybe even more so for the above average Windows user 11 GB shouldn't be that much.

Know I understand that with the popularity of SSD storage that getting back to more economy is a good thing and I'm not saying that optimizing Windows with a tool like this is necessarily a bad thing. I've never used such a tool and will NEVER use a tool like that. I just don't like tools messing with a Windows install to much, just another thing that can go wrong.

[Jon55]

Considering a trimmed XP is 800-900 megs, 8-11GB is kind of big.

XP is also from 2001. I'll wager a trimmed Win 98 would be much lower than 800-900 megs, but that doesn't make it a good idea to install.

If 11 GB is seriously hurting you, get a new hard drive. There's no excuse for this. I can only assume you're installing it on a very old system that has a 40 GB HDD. As for netbooks, even a small SSD (64 GB) shouldn't be hurting you.

[qwertyaas]

It's not that I need the extra 4GB space. But I don't see the need to have 2GB of printer drivers sitting in my install.

The same reason why people disable Hibernate. If you never use it, why let it waste the 2GB? Same reason why people lower the page file.

And no, I'm running a 7200.12 500GB. I have the space and that's not the problem.

[runnin17]

Best guide I have found is right here: http://www.msfn.org/board/windows-7-rtm-32-64-bit-updated-t137765.html&mode=show.

I just installed Win 7 on my 40GB Kingston and it is working perfect, plus I had around 34GB of free space left after my Win 7 install. Keep in mind that the 40GB Kingston drive really only has 37GB of hard drive space.

[reb00tin]

If you really want Lite, Ubuntu Linux will cheerfully install itself on a 4GB flash drive, and it will even attempt to boot on any machine you stick it in.

[MrCrispy]

One of the reasons people liked vLite for Vista was to trim down stuff in an effort to make the OS leaner and faster. IMO it didn't really achieve much in terms of speed. Win7 in particular doesn't need any tweaking of things like services, but you can certainly trim the fat if you want to.

[Udo]

If you really want Lite, Ubuntu Linux will cheerfully install itself on a 4GB flash drive, and it will even attempt to boot on any machine you stick it in.

Running an OS from a thumb drive is very slow in my experience. My fix is to get more HDD's and forget about gutting out the OS. I have 3 1TB WD Black Caviar HDDs so don't care if there is 2GB of print drivers I don't need. I have some games that take up close to 10GB alone so why would I care about 2GB of printer drivers?

[repoman0]

I used to always use nlite on XP and vlite on Vista. These days it's way too much of a pain in the ass for no gain, except for a few GB of space. And it almost always broke something.

[bigdogchris]

One of the reasons people liked vLite for Vista was to trim down stuff in an effort to make the OS leaner and faster. IMO it didn't really achieve much in terms of speed. Win7 in particular doesn't need any tweaking of things like services, but you can certainly trim the fat if you want to.I hate post like this becuase it makes it sound so good to strip out OS components in a method it wasn't intended to be. It's not like a 10GB install is a lot. Fuck, Dragon Age is 15GB and not a single person has bitched about it, but if the primary component/software of the computer (the OS) is 8-10GB installed, it's bloated.

:rolleyes:

[TechieSooner]

For the record, the drivers packaged up in Vista on my machine are 35MB. On Windows 7 it's 50MB.

The time you spend stripping that crap out would've paid for a 1GB flash drive, :)

Yea, there's other stuff you can strip. I guess it's fine but just don't be surprised when your system gets screwy later.

Considering a trimmed XP is 800-900 megs, 8-11GB is kind of big.

To be fair, once you slipstream all the updates and nonsense into it- you're still going to be putting XP on a DVD. Many of those updates have already been packaged onto the Windows 7 disk itself, so....

Yea, Windows 7 is bigger. But it also means less time downloading drivers and screwing with stuff to just "make it work" (remember that argument the Apple fanboys present so often). Disk space is so cheap (And netbooks are the only exception here), it's nonsense to be worrying about 10GB OS install anymore.

[TechieSooner]

I hate post like this becuase it makes it sound so good to strip out OS components in a method it wasn't intended to be. It's not like a 10GB install is a lot. Fuck, Dragon Age is 15GB and not a single person has bitched about it, but if the primary component/software of the computer (the OS) is 8-10GB installed, it's bloated.

:rolleyes:

I missed this... Exactly.

We're perfectly fine installing huge monsters like Adobe CS4, any video games, or any other number of items that can all be classified as "bloated" by loading entirely more stuff than what it needs at the time, but the single most important peice of software on your machine (the operating system) has little bits of data on it that result in less time installing deivces: oh the horror!!!

[Jon55]

I missed this... Exactly.

We're perfectly fine installing huge monsters like Adobe CS4, any video games, or any other number of items that can all be classified as "bloated" by loading entirely more stuff than what it needs at the time, but the single most important peice of software on your machine (the operating system) has little bits of data on it that result in less time installing deivces: oh the horror!!!

+1

In the amount of time you spend on minimizing an install to save a few hundred measly MB's, you could have started earning the money for a new HDD.

A fast 1TB drive can be had for under $100.