Super small XP install

Usng nlite, winlogin and EWF, I've managed to get my system stable with no pagefile or hyberfil.sys. The OS image is almost 1G though.
I read some people had really small images. How did you pull this off?
I see almost 300megs of dll and exe files in the windows system32 folder. Is there anything there that can be safely removed?

Can anybody provide some insight?

Thanks

I just went real quick through the wizard and removed as much as I could. One thing I removed was network drivers since I then installed the VIA driver update anyways. Try doing that. Just remove as many drivers as possible, plus read through the nLite forums (I found a few things in there), and don't forget OEMBIOS after the minlogon mod. I also removed all the languages besides english. My system is 830 with the hibernation file and no pagefile. I could do more, I'm sure, but I don't really need to at this point.

Ya I did all that. 830 with a hibernation file is about the same size that I'm down to.
I read some guy had his install down to 380mb. That's a BIG difference. Add a hibernation file and your still around 500-600 megs. I wonder how he/she got rid of a whole 200 more megs.

Is this so winxp will run faster? Or are you trying to boot off of a digital media card (or some other low space media)?

Oh, I forgot to mention that my hibernation file is for a 512mb ram system, so my install is about the same. 830mb total - 447mb hiberfil.sys = 383mb XP. So I could potentially run it off a 512MB card if I decide not to use hibernation, but I already bought the 1GB card anyway.

I'm trying to run off a compact flash card.
Sfiorito. Can you provide some more info on how you got it that small? My xp install is around 500megs. Did you just use the nLite "lite" preset and remove network drivers?
Did you delete anything after the install? I must be missing something big here. About 200megs big! :)

My nLite XPSP2 install was ~380-400MB stock w/o a hiberfile. With a bit more after install tweaking, I'm sure it could be made smaller -- it just depends on what system interfaces and services you need and/or expect to work.

Here's my settings.ini file from nLite.

Code:

---

[Main]
Version = 0.99.4 beta 2
Framework = 1.1.4322.2032
Target = Windows XP Professional SP2 - build 2180

[Pages]
Service Pack Integration
Components Removal
Unattended Setup
Options
Bootable ISO Image

[Components]
Accessibility Options
Briefcase
Calculator
Charmap
Defragmenter
Games
Internet Games
Pinball
Screensavers
Wordpad
Battery
Bluetooth Support
Cameras and Camcorders
Display Adapters
Toshiba DVD decoder card
Firewire (1394)
IBM Thinkpad
InfraRed
ISDN
Modems
MultiFunctional
Multi-port serial adapters
Portable Audio
Printers
Scanners
SCSI
Smartcards
Wireless Ethernet (WLAN)
Communication tools
FrontPage Extensions
Internet Information Services
NWLink IPX/SPX/NetBIOS Protocol
Internet Printing
Windows Messenger
MSN Explorer
Netmeeting
Network Monitor
NetShell Cmd-Tool
Client for Netware Networks
Outlook Express
Peer-to-Peer
Synchronization Manager
Tcp/Ip Version 6
Web Folders
Arabic
Baltic
Central Europe
Chinese Simplified
Chinese Traditional
Cyrillic
Georgian
Greek
Hebrew
Indian
Japanese
Korean
Thai
Turkish
Vietnamese
Multilanguage Support (LANG dir)
Service Pack Messages
Images and Backgrounds
Luna Theme
Media Center
Mouse Cursors
Movie Maker
Music Samples
Old CDPlayer and Sound Recorder
Paint
MIDI audio support
Speech Support
Tablet PC
Windows Sounds
Windows Media Player
Administrator VB scripts
Disk Cleanup
DR Watson
File and Settings Wizard
Framework
Help
Manual Install and Upgrade
MS Agent
Out of Box Experience
Search Assistant
Security Center
Shell Media Handler
Task Scheduler
Tour
Web View
Alerter
Application Layer Gateway
ClipBook
CTF Loader
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Error Reporting
Fax Services
Imapi
Indexing Service
Messenger
Performance Logs and Alerts
Remote Registry
Removable Storage
Secondary Logon
SNMP
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Service Advertising Protocol
System Restore
Telnet Server
Terminal Services
Uninterruptible Power Supply
Universal Plug and Play
Volume Shadow Copy
WebClient
Windows Time
Wireless Zero Configuration
docs
support
valueadd

[KeepFiles]
msconfig.exe
scrnsave.scr

[RemoveFiles]

[Options]
ProfilesDir = "%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings"
isomaker = -volid "WinLite" -allow-multidot -relaxed-filenames -allow-leading-dots -N -l -d -D -joliet-long -duplicates-once -no-emul-boot -b boot.bin -hide boot.bin -hide boot.catalog

---

Any idea which component is needed for OLE database support? My last attempt killed FrodoPlayer and centrafuse.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by knubile

Ya I did all that. 830 with a hibernation file is about the same size that I'm down to.
I read some guy had his install down to 380mb. That's a BIG difference. Add a hibernation file and your still around 500-600 megs. I wonder how he/she got rid of a whole 200 more megs.

---

That guy is probably me. Indeed, diference is hiberfill.sys as I do not use hibernation, so I could get rid of it. However, my curent WinXP is 280 MB not 380 MB :) With IE and .NET only.

280! I don't have a hibernate file or pagefile and I'm down to under 400. How are you down to 280?
Details man. Details!! :)