Volatus
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Posts posted by Volatus
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I have to fully disagree with the very concept that Vista can be the "best" anything MS has produced. If anything, it's MS's longest (and most bloated) suicide note. It's had a lot of under the hood improvements, but they are absolutely BUNK with all the bullcrap M$ bloated on top of it, with the whole "managed code" approach with hardlinks and junctions (reparse points, etc) up the wazoo. Believe me, having jumped on top of every new version of Windows like it was the hottest thing ever (I had no complaints with WinME either), Vista has got to be the worst thing ever.
Just the other day, I used my Pocket PC as a wireless router to download and place the "Viruses, Intruders, Spyware, Trojans, and Adware" wallpaper on a Vista computer at a local Circuit City. The "Great Wall of Vista" was absolutely nauseating... I couldn't see XP anywhere in sight. >.<
At any rate... the least that could be done here is to _finally_ put up a final version of XPize. Or at the very least, just consider the latest version a "final" version. The only things that need to be changed to make it a universal recommendation for me is some default settings - like checking "XPIze settings in control panel" and "XPize reloader on startup"... plus, I'm not too fond of the "custom icons" set (good icons, just hate not being able to see what program is associated with them), the cursors, or the boot screen. I always make those adjustments.
But the core of the problem: Vista. Ditch Vista. Vista is going to die. If I chewed it up and spat it back out, imagine how many hundreds of thousands of other people, that previously liked new Windows versions, are also thinking the same thing. Where'd you miss the "f^ck this s***!" boat? What could possibly be good in Vista so much as to call it MS's "best"?! I'm really dying to know
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Yeps. I don't understand why that didn't fix it. I deleted everything in there, and when I rebooted, it rebuilt itself but I still couldn't change anything
Strangest problem ever. I wonder if there's a Windows system file that got corrupted somehow. =\
edit:
I've given up... I have finally exhausted the last possible option. I grabbed a drive that the computer had never seen before, erased it, gave it a single active NTFS partition, then copied all the files from the "problem" drive (with no admitted drive letter) to the new drive using two IDE<->USB adapters. Then I booted it. It still assigned no letter to the C: drive.
And I do mean the C: drive. In My Computer, it will actually take any letter I assign it - that is, even while running, I can switch the C: drive to be X: and all shortcuts will break, running programs will crash, etc... but Disk Management still says there's no letter assigned to it. It flashes the new drive letter for a split second over the partition label, and that's it, it goes back to unassigned. The strange thing is, everything still works fine. The system runs perfectly fine. Not a single glitch or problem other than the drive letter in Disk Management.
Strange thing is, all other drives can be assigned letters. I plugged in a flash drive and it gave it a letter. I plugged in a second hard drive to the controller and it got a letter too. Everything but partitions on the boot drive can get a letter.
I have _no idea_ what is going on here, and I doubt anyone else does either. I guess I just stumbled on one of those genuine Windows flukes. I absolutely hate giving up on solving a problem, but I guess I have no choice.
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Well, I may opt to give that a try. Right now I'm still fighting with that failed conversion I outlined in painful detail above.
Problem is, I cannot for the life of me get that computer's Disk Management to assign a drive letter. I even backed up the whole drive, erased it, then repartitioned it (with one single 4gb partition to save time), then restored the Windows system onto that partition. It still boots as drive C: and is visible in My Computer, but Disk Management claims there is no drive letter attached to it.
If I create a new partition in the empty space, it will claim the letter it chose (E, for example) is already in use and assigns no letter. If I pick a high letter like U or V, it flashes that letter on the partition for a split second before it disappears again. I've tried deleting the drive, deleting all volumes, deleting any references to drives or volumes in the registry, deleting everything I possibly can, and it still has that same problem.
What I'm going to try now is creating a microscopic nLite installation, barely enough to install and boot. Then I'll export the registry to a ".reg" file, pull the ol' switcharoo on the partitions like I did on this computer, boot it again (band-aid if needed), and export it again. Then I'll compare the two reg files and see what changed.
That, I'm all but certain, will reveal the problem and allow me to fix it on this trouble computer (and I'll, of course, post the results). Man, I can't believe Windows can be such a pain, but browsing through the registry tonight kinda clued me in as to why it is such a pain... =(
edit: Yeah, I can't reproduce it. I just did exactly the same thing to that test installation (on the same base system as well) on a separate hard drive, and it failed just as catastrophically - locking up during the first startup with the "can't find profile, using default...", etc, error messages, had to Ctrl+Alt+Del x2 the login screen, but I was able to - just as before, "junction" the users/programs folders to their drive letters. Then I went to diskmgmt.msc (which hung for a while), and it had all 4 (primary!) partitions assigned letters. I don't get it. Maybe it's a drive thing and it needs to be erased. Sigh...
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Heya,
Don't take my comments the wrong way, but I really hate the overall tone of this thread. Really. Really.
It seems like the trashy, inevitably-uninstalled-from-most-users-computers operating system (Vista) is getting all the attention here. Unfortunately, it seems that Vista is going to be the central focus now, much like Nuhi with vLite as well (nLite hasn't gotten an update in way too long).
XP is still the better operating system, bar none. But if the developers of the tools that keep XP alive abandon the project, leaving users to hack together solutions in the meantime, everyone will soon be forced to drudge with Vista. That's not cool. Soon we'll be seeing ad-pages in place of xpize.net and nliteos.com if this keeps going in the direction it's going... it's bad enough that manufacturers seem to be putting XP on the back burner.
For everyone's sake, xpero, you've done an excellent job so far. I have no complaints with .NET as the XPize installer complained about not having it anyway. I have complaints about the project being abandoned in favor of Vistrash. Could you please, please, please concentrate on XPize again?
edit: To clarify, I don't mean take time away from work or anything like that. I mean to drop Vize off your recent files list. Put that crappy OS on the back burner. Maybe even install XP and XPize again and see what you've been missing in performance and usability with Vistrash. I'm willing to bet a million bucks your work would become much easier with XP anyway... maybe you'd even find yourself with more free time!
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Jesus God no, don't use FAT32! FAT32 is so old and outdated, it's a slap in the face of logic to say "i don't like NTFS because of the system volume information folder".
That folder is annoying (with its default security options - just erase them and enable inherited permissions on it), but it only holds less than 1mb of filesystem data. Your FAT tables are larger than the NTFS MFT and bloated log file combined. NTFS has the added benefit of being able to store very small files in the file table itself, as opposed to needing to read the file table ("where is it?") then go fetch the data ("what is it?") like in FAT32. NTFS, when properly optimized, is orders of magnitude better (and not to mention more reliable) than FAT32.
The only things NTFS does wrong is the ESN journal (created if you install Live Messenger), which can be deleted and disabled, and the obscenely large "log file" that serves absolutely no purpose (64mb by default). You can reduce the log file size to the minimum (2mb) by doing "chkdsk X: /l:2048" and rebooting (where X is your drive letter). Most of the problems with NTFS is in Windows' default implementation of it - much like most things in Windows.
So ditch that old FAT32 piece of junk and upgrade yourself to NTFS. Properly optimized, it'll be a _lot_ quicker than FAT. Not to mention more reliable, and give you ever so slightly more disk space. NTFS also has filesystem-level compression as well, which, as opposed to DriveSpace-like crap, is actually reliable.
Oh... and maybe you were referring to the fact that System Restore stores its data in the System Volume Information folder. That's a reason I hate System Restore. Just disable it. That's part of Windows, not NTFS. You'll see that on your FAT drive as well.
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The problem with moving things to different partitions (drive letters) is that letters are inflexible - if you end up shuffling around drive letters (maybe by accident or by slaving a drive), you're screwed - all the files linking to the old letter don't get that drive any more. The advantage of mount points is that you don't need to tweak a single thing within Windows. Additionally, ill-coded programs that hard code a "Program Files" destination, for example, won't have trouble. You also don't need to manually tweak the installation path of each installed program, nor do you need to keep an additional "C:\Program Files" folder when your typical-usage path is really "D:\" or the like.
I also made a little better progress on another computer I was doing a separation on. Since you always need to install Windows first, you can always do this to a running (live) system with no damage. The method I chronicled earlier was just a bad idea - creating the partitions, mount points, and moving the data, all in one go while "slaved". If you make the partitions and mount points outside of the booted system, it won't recognize it when it goes to boot up again. You've got to make the partitions and mount points (folders) first - then slave (or boot-CD) it and move the data and rename the folders. Best way to do it.
And of course, glad I could help
edit: By the way, moving your page file to another partition will typically decrease your performance, unless it's between two partitions of frequently accessed data! For example, if you think that just putting it on its own partition will help, and hence just resize your main partition down by a few gigs and put a partition at the end of the drive, you'll end up with a sloppy, slow as hell system that's a headache to use (thinking "oh, your advice blows, n00b!"). So... well... I dare say that none of this is what a "sane" person would do - either that or most people are insane (more likely). Hopefully this will show people what is sane though
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I already did that with nLite prior to uploading to the USB stick, and chose not to do unattended for a reason. Shouldn't the software ask if you want to have unattended settings hijacked or not? I mean, if it's at all possible to do the USB install without preselected settings? I sure didn't enter "UserXP" and "Prive" for the user details...
As for the format... I just let PE2USB do its own thing with defaults. Maybe next time I'll try it with NTFS. One thing's for sure though, XP setup started really quick
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Nah. It was really just a convenience thing. Turns out that USB is no faster than DVD+/CD-RW anyway (actually quite a bit slower and less functional).
I have to admit I'm rather, eh, unimpressed by it. It stripped out a few options like entering my name and organization, time zone(!), and login details! Kinda important things. I was confused as heck as to why the clock got reset to totally the wrong time, 'til I saw it changed the timezone from the default (GMT -8), which happens to be where I live (so I never touch it). *shrug* At least, in this particular case, it saves me the trouble of coming up with reasonable values for this person's computer when I don't even remember their name... =P
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You're right. It was the computer's BIOS. I booted the same key, with the same "j" problem, in another computer (finally given the opportunity), and it started up to the boot menu.
Yay!
Now I'm going to go install Windows on this new computer (as seen in my sig, Vista->XP computer #3), from USB for the first time
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Dude, holy hell! This is the oldest topic on the BOARD! Why the heck did you bump this?!
It's part of nLite now anyway... no need to even know about tweaks when you have nLite. You are installing all your Windows with nLite, aren't you?
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I'm now giving an older (1ghz Duron, 192mb RAM, XP Pro SP2 + nLite, about 4 month old install) computer the partitioning treatment. (edit: I first slaved the drive, of course... then...) I first moved all the data in the Users and Program Files folders off to another drive (to simplify the process). Then I used Paragon Total Defrag to shrink the MFT to a reasonable size, and defragment/compact the drive. Then I'm going to shrink the main partition to 3gb (it's a 20gb drive), and add partitions for swap, program files, and user data, as in the example above.
I'll update this post as I go.
edit: Okay, all defragged... and started repartitioning. Wow, Partition Magic blazed through the resizing, since it was so cleanly defragged. Now I'm just waiting on it to "update system information" over and over. *guh*
edit: Yay! Now with the chkdsk x: /l:2048 to set the log file size to the absolute minimum. Stupid log file wasting valuable space. Saves a maximum of 62mb.
edit: Alrighty. Now to compact and defrag the MFT on each drive, since they're always placed in the worst location - the center of each partition...
edit: That out of the way, now created the folders on the main drive, and mounted the drives in the right places (leaving swap to be assigned when I reboot the computer). Now, copying the files back to the drive. Needless to say it's going a lot faster.
edit: Already ran into my first quirk... TeraCopy (my file manipulation app of choice - check it out) was led to believe that there was only F:\'s free space available in F:\Users, ignoring that it was a mounted volume. Hm... I wonder if that may be a problem in the future. I was able to tell it to ignore the error though and try copying it anyway - which it's doing now quite nicely.
edit: Contrary to unpopular belief, you should, in fact, get yourself one of these. It's a self contained USB-IDE adapter and power brick. Infinitely useful.
edit...: Yay! Now to install a power supply in this thing (notably missing from the above image), and give it a try. Keep in mind... the last time I used this computer, it took a full FIVE MINUTES to finish starting up and loading the startup items (yahoo messenger and MySpaceIM. Hey, it wasn't a computer I used.)
edit: ****. I wasn't expecting that. Windows totally did not recognize the new path assignments I gave it while "slaved" to USB. So the "users" and "program files" folders were unusable folders and I'm surprised Windows even booted to a semiusable state. It gave me all sorts of nasty errors and hung up at the strangest things. I got to a command prompt via Ctrl+Shift+Del (task manager) and used Sysinternals' Junction to change the "program files" and "users" mount points to junctions that pointed to the drive letters. Then I logged out and logged back in, and found that, to Disk Management's point of view, not even drive C: had a drive letter. Wow. That's messed up. Now I'm rebooting it to see if it can pull itself together, where I'll create the fake folders I originally mentioned, re-slave it, rename them, and try this again.
edit: Wow, that fubbed up. Bad. It worked, but I was tied to nonexistent drive letters! Both Disk Management _and_ diskpart agreed on one thing: that none of my partitions (including drive C:) had drive letters. I could reassign any of them to any other letter, even while Windows was running off drive C. I could change my C letter to H: on the fly. And it would still deny that a letter was assigned to it. That is the STRANGEST problem I'd ever experienced. And in one FAIL swoop of experimentation, I typed "clear" into diskpart, got a flash of BLUE, and the drive would no longer boot. Wow, thanks, MS, for the confirmation that I was going to brick the system. Grr... okay, so back to the drawing board.
Word of caution: don't do what I did.
That's me: f*cking up, and learning to fix, Windows problems, since 1996!
final edit: Wow. I was able to rebuild the MBR that diskpart erased without warning, and got it to boot again after a fixboot and fixmbr in recovery console, but Disk Management still REFUSES TO SHOW ME ANY DRIVE LETTERS! They're ASSIGNED drive letters, but Disk Management (and hence Diskpart) tell me there are none! So frustrating! So the lesson of today is: DON'T DO THIS WITHOUT FIRST CREATING THE MOUNT POINTS ON THE BOOTED COMPUTER!
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Ah, true. Well, Windows relies on some kind of weird GUID thing to mount volumes in folders (I believe it makes a junction folder pointing to the new volume), which, as anyone familiar with Windows Installer or InstallShield should know, is really unreliable. But as long as you don't go trashing your drive tables or whatever, it should be good to go
As for how to mount those drives?
First, create a new empty folder where you want the drive to go. Then go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, then go to Disk Management (or just start, run, diskmgmt.msc, OK). Right click the partition you want to mount in a folder, and click "Change Drive Letter and Paths...". Click "Add...". In that window, pick your new folder and click OK on each of the dialogs. Now you have a mounted drive!
(edit: Also note the lack of a "(Page)" denotation on any of those partitions. Disable your page file if you've got enough memory, for the WIN.)
Mounted drives can be infinitely useful even outside of doing this trick. You can do what I've done and even mount separate drives within your main C:\ tree - for example, my Downloads drive takes the place of my old "Downloads" folder on my hard drive - so to avoid breaking links in uTorrent (my BitTorrent client of choice), I mounted my new drive as the "Downloads" folder and gave it a letter of Z:. It's an eSATA drive that acts like part of my main hard drive!
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Here's something you all might be interested in. It's something I've been refining ever since I put together my new Core 2 Duo system with a NCQ-supported SATA2 hard drive. How to make a fast computer faster?
Partition. But read on... as it doesn't involve installing things on D:\, E:\, and F:\...
See, when you make the computer run from one huge partition, over time (even immediately after installation), Windows decides to scatter stuff everywhere. Defragging won't help a thing because the individual files are all in inappropriate places - like one file from a program being placed (in its entirety) at the top of the drive and a support file, say from System32, at the bottom of the drive. It has to seek both places, often at the same time resulting in multiple read/write accesses for the same two files. Bad stuff.
My solution? Partition. Windows needs three major folders: C:\Windows, C:\Users (or the annoying "Documents and Settings" if you don't modify your folder names), and C:\Program Files. Each has a distinct function and a generally fixed size. Through the use of mounted volumes (a function of NTFS), you can accomplish something like this, which I'm currently using on a 2.0GHz P4 system with 512mb RAM...
As you can tell, each partition lies along an appropriate segment of the drive based on its transfer rate... higher transfer rate also means better seek time due to higher data density along the disc surface - less tracks to need to seek through (given that the drive uses CLV recording, which I'm assuming it does for the transfer rate to drop off at the end of the drive - the inner area of the discs)
(click for larger)
Each partition also has its own drive letter assigned, in reverse, from Z upwards. They don't need drive letters assigned, but it helps to allow you to see how much space is remaining in each partition at a glance.
Here's the partition layout in Partition Magic...
The result? It's nothing to laugh about. The Windows partition being located in the top part of the drive results in EXTREMELY good seek times, and the pagefile partition being located between the Windows and Program Files partitions gives an exceedingly good advantage in access times, being right between the two interactive areas. Loaded programs often do two things while loading - they read files from System32, and they write to the page file, and they read themselves. Having the page file between the two partitions makes it extremely snappy since it's "along the way".
Cold boot within, a rough guess, about 20 seconds, faster than my C2D system (that doesn't separate the Windows folder from programs, etc). It starts faster than anything I've ever seen and it no longer has the hard drive being a bottleneck.
I very recently rebuilt a 550MHz Pentium III system with the same layout, and it was the first system I did with the partition layout. It was the fastest P3 system I'd ever seen. It started up blazing fast and opened programs even faster. I can't really describe in (believable) words how fast this computer ran, but... believe me, it really blew my "client" away.
This system also helps ensure reliability, as the file system is no longer centralized either. If one partition fails (like the Windows partition, at the beginning of the drive), the others should still be readable to recover your data if some slip of the finger ends you up erasing the first few hundred megs of your drive. You can still recover it by using a partition recovery program.
The only potential downside is the partition's size limitation, but I haven't seen a Windows folder get over about 5 gigs (on a really bad computer in need of a cleaning). You'd need to adjust the sizes of the page file partition and program files partitions accordingly, but the Users (or Documents and Settings) folder should always be at the end, as it's only used to store static data like videos, music, documents, etc.
Doing this on a clean Windows installation should be done by first partitioning the drive (slaved, or using a boot CD or PartitionMagic boot disks), then installing Windows on the small partition. Then mount the drives in fake folders (I usually use the words "Program Fails" and "Usirs"). Shut down the computer, slave the drive (or boot from a PE boot CD like UBCD4Win), move the data from the "real" folder to the "fake" folder (which should retain its mount assignment in the host OS), delete the original Users and Program Files folders, and rename the mount points to their real names. Then reboot and enjoy!
You can even do this with an existing Windows installation. Just do it carefully, but do the same "fake folders" system. It may take careful planning if your drive is packed, or more than one take. The best way to do it though, is of course a clean install.
Any thoughts on this?
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I see now. Okay. Geez, I wish they'd quote each other across pages, so stuff like this wouldn't happen.
Still, there are many, many better alternatives to junk like Megaupload, like that site I built just to put Megaupload out of business.
Sorry about that rudeness I posted earlier. Glad this didn't go further south than it did
edit: It also resulted in me feeding MSFN a few bucks. It's worth it. I love this site, and I'm surprised more people don't dump a measly 15 bucks on it. My site relies on donations, so I just paid for one site's donations from another.
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Trying to help? The file was already hosted and this "anonymous" guy uploaded it to a MALWARE website so people can have viruses installed on their computer when they go to download it. That is NOT what I call "helping". And if you want to keep discussions about mod actions private, you should use the PM system instead of dragging the dirt out on the public forum...
Meanwhile, I still can't find where to undo that driver web dialog tweak... >.<
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* awesome tool with such garbage as MegaUpload.
Hey! This project is just what I was looking for! There may be hundreds of "tweaker" tools out there, but I don't trust them further than I can throw them. Right now I'm looking for a tool that can un-tweak a setting I did on an nLite installation - "Disable driver update internet prompt" - that when Googled, resulted in no results except the earliest topic relating to this one! It seems to not even be a documented registry edit I could make. So this is a lifesaver.
But I dare say following the chain of topics was difficult! From the original topic, I followed a couple topics, but the link at the end of this page is now broken! You think you can edit that and point it here?
Other than that, hey! May I be an official file host for this project? I'm sure you'll love my site... I'm already hosting a couple software projects there
edit: Ah, hell. It doesn't even have a small sub-section of nLite's tweaks in it. So no "disable driver update internet prompt" for me
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Okay. I zeroed the drive at the physical level using WinHex (at least it's not a **** DOS tool and I could verify it was being done). It was then completely blank, all zeroes from sector 0 on.
Then I formatted it with PEtoUSB on the default options (Enable LBA checked).
Now I'm running USB_MultiBoot_8.cmd again on it.
edit:
j
Just "j". I'm starting to hate that letter.
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Thanks for the help!
It's a Memorex TravelDrive (TD) Classic, 1gb. It is EXTREMELY fast (about as fast at random R/W and write as a hard drive) and I've totally f*cked it up over the years. Unfortunately there isn't a tool available such as Victoria, for USB Flash drives, so I can't do a low level format on it.
I'd assume, given that problem, that makers of so-called "USB boot" software would keep this (and the fact that _nobody_ in their right mind partitions a flash drive like they do a hard drive) in mind, and have their way with the MBR and boot sector instead of leaving it to chance like this.
Attached are what seem to be my flash drive's boot sector and MBR. What's strange is that all of my drives show a similar MBR... including the Flash drive.
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I must say, what an exciting project! I just wish it would work.
The tools that are provided to prepare a USB drive for booting are shady at best. The HP format tool is known to create an MS-DOS startup drive on USB, not boot to NTLDR or setupldr.bin. That other USB-booter seems to be designed to do something else and it doesn't write anything on the drive. It just seems to be another format tool.
As a result, I think my USB drive was left with the old bootsector or boot data, and as a result, it doesn't boot for crap. All it does it just print the single letter "j" on my screen and freeze, when it goes to boot from the USB drive. And yes, my boot order is correct (the HDD would say "NTDLR is missing" because it's a blank NTFS partition, and there's no CD in the drive). It's happened twice on the computer I'm working with now.
While I stare in awe at the awesome work done by the USB-WinXP-install crew (or guy?), I can't help but say "It doesn't work for me".
Anything I should try? Meanwhile, I'm back at using a DVD+RW to burn my boot
edit: It need be mentioned. I'm using USB_MultiBoot7, not 8. Maybe there's a change but if I must say, the distribution system is very tacky and hard to understand. You should take a page from Nuhi's book on nLite distributions and make a new topic (with new version attached) each time there's an update, and rattle off relevant changes. I wanted to see if my bug/issue was fixed or addressed... but I can't be asked to make another self-extracting archive!
edit edit: I did anyway. Behold, a single executable USB_MultiBoot_8.exe, packaged using WinRAR. USB_MultiBoot_8.exe
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Well, on that same note, all downloads of XP are legal, far as I can tell. It's the key (license) they may or may not use (depending on if the creator decided to pull an "unattended" on the illegal key), that would be illegal if you chose to use it.
As for me, I'm using a legal copy of XP installed from a downloaded XP disc because I didn't have the OEM install CD. So I kinda think that makes it legal... but then again I didn't pour (sp?) over the over-worded and overly-ridiculous EULA to find out. =\
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tbh, what do you expect on such a poor spec
512mb, celeron, 10gb
recipe for disaster!
I expect it to work. Period.
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(A question to those who are more knowledgeable, like cluberti)
Shouldn't you legally be able to download an English disc of the same type (i.e. XP Pro OEM if that's what's preinstalled), then use that legally-obtained code to activate the English version? I mean, CD keys aren't language specific... that I'm aware of...?
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I get the distinct, and very unfortunate, feeling that this particular user has absolutely no idea how nLite works or what it is designed to do, by the following points:
1) Selected C:\WINDOWS as the folder to operate on. No excuses. You selected it. nLite would never do such a thing.
2) Spoke about an unfinished nLite error - even though that error is brought up by selecting a folder that's unfinished - that is, your WINDOWS FOLDER AGAIN!
3) Thinks that nLite has anything to do with a clean install or upgrade/repair...
I think someone needs to take the fork out of forkprong's hands before he shoves it in the outlet again... Can someone help point him in the direction of detailing exactly what nLite does? Like, that it creates an installation DISC, not modifies an existing installation...?
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Simply put, not every single person that runs Vista needs all the languages of the world consuming 1.4gb of space. MS should be smarter than that, to have it filter out (or at least ASK) what language(s) people want to use, if even more than one. As it is, MS is forcing all this junk on everyone's computers... hell, XP already does this to a lesser extent, but at least it only provides the ability to display such things, as opposed to 1.4gb of "international support". *shakes fist*
I guess the bloat epidemic began with Windows Installer and its obsessive "protection" system - keeping a copy of the flippin' installer sitting on the hard drive and corrupting the program if you opt to remove it manually. Now Vista itself is built around the same "redundancy" system, causing all sorts of problems for people that actually want control over their systems. If MS didn't want people to modify Windows, they should have made Windows customizable like they did in the old days of '95 (to at least an extent). Hell, the fact that they don't even ask basic questions like "do you really need all these languages installed?" - questions on the same basic level as time zone and clock settings (which I often leave as default, being in the default Pacific time zone) - shows MS doesn't even give a hell.
As it is, I vLitened the original disc without doing SP1 and installed it. It installed much quicker, spending a lot less time at "completing installation" (but still a good amount - much more than logical for "completing"...), sped through the desktop-wallpaper "in limbo" moments, and got me to my desktop in darn near "impressive for Vista" time. From there I found everything working about as nicely as Vista is capable of, but still not as good as XP. It only consumed 3.5gb of disk space and 360mb RAM, which kind-of brings me to my final point...
An operating system should not be the center of your computer's performance. Nobody should have to upgrade their hardware just to run a new version of a software application designed to facilitate running software applications. I can run Windows XP on every piece of hardware crossing my bedroom, from a 400MHz Celeron (sitting in the corner) to my main Core 2 Duo system. Vista is something that actually makes someone have to upgrade a computer just to get, well... to get an OS with improved back-end code to make the bloated front-end work almost as well as the last version. Superfetch and ReadyBoost just compensate for Vista's bloat... and try to make it work as well as XP does without all that garbage. Even more XP tweaks and you have a computer that makes Vista look like "wait, is this the old version or the new one?"...
And don't even get me started on Mac OS X vs Vista.
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What Not To Remove For Some Programs
in nLite
Posted · Edited by Volatus
It need be added:
Recent versions of iTunes now crash if Smart Card support is removed. Don't remove it if you like your iTunes. I no longer do after my iPod was lost, so woohoo!
edit: That's funny, I searched this thread for iTunes and the last post didn't come up. Sigh. Search fail.