I've been trying to figure out the best approach also, & I'm still slightly confused. RT7lite seems good, has Black Viper services tweaks presets which I really like, but seems he has a few bugs to fix yet? 7Customizer seems stable but I want to pre-treak the services, turn off Areo, etc like RT7lite does. CalBoy , your step-by-step instructions seem complete, but I'd be afraid I'd mess something up. What I really want is a configuration program that is id1ot-proof like X-Setup was for utilities. Something that has good info for what each action does, & warns if hazardous. I don't care if it is pre-install or post-install. Something that can install all the MS patches & 3rd party drivers & delete all the old DLLs. A mini-configurer for when I about to install with my new optimized installer to turn on/off extra application installers (eg install MSOffice & other major apps). Any advice here is appreciated. x509, I own a reg for WinRAR but actually use 7-zip. Easier to use for me, & 7z files seem smaller. Also, unless I'm deploying alot of computers at once, I tend not to put smaller utilities like that or web browsers, etc on install CDs anymore. There is a new version every few weeks/months so I'll end up uninstalling, downloading, & reinstalling anyway. A big program like Adobe Creative Suite would be useful; they only patch 1-2 times per year per app, unless you're going to upgrade (from CS4 to CS5) by the time you install next.