Jody Thornton

I was able to find v1.8 of WinSxS Lite which seems to do a credible job of searching out what componenets are obsolete, and then it can delete them (Almost like DISM for Vista...lol, but not really). I may try that and see if Windows Updates work afterwards.

Really? Wouldn't Server 2008 R2 be build on the Windows NT v6.1 codebase? I would think that 2008 and 2008 R2 would be distinctly different operating systems. So I'd be surprised that Win7/2008R2 updates would work on Vista, no?

Yes that I'm familiar with. But thanks nonetheless.

Some of your points I wanted to address. And this was exactly the sort of viewpoints I was looking for. I am a capable person when it comes to systems, but I like to hear others opinions. So no worries about being off-topic. ( a ) I didn't "Lite" the installation of Vista x64 when I used it last year, and it was on an alternate hardisk. I am the first to say that it ran VERY WELL. Other than the boot logo/welcome screen taking much longer than XP (I use classic logon with XP x64), once the desktop appeared, it was likety split fast. I even foucsed on authoring MMC plugins using the Trusted Installer creds (so for example, I could customize my services screen), running all of the apps I needed (I know now that I had to install Windows Help so that I could use "Help" on classic apps using the Help code based on v3.0. Everything ran pretty smoothly. ( b ) I did defeat services and processes, I found that turning off Indexing, and removing the Index Pointers on the NTFS partition gave a resonably noticeable performance boost (except of course with searching...lol, but that's OK). Defeating SuperFetch also performed better (I retained conventional Prefetch). An I have many years experience with NTFS parttions since the Windows NT 3.5x days, modifying cluster sizes, etc.... I have just always noticed that FAT32 performed better on small volumes (It certainly did in Windows 2000 and XP) and I didn't yet try to see if Vista followed suit. But given the difficulties, I'll stick with NTFS ( c ) I still hate to hate something bloated just because we have ample hardware resources to our disposal. I like things quick and tight. Just because I can get a 1 TB drive doesn't mean I want my OS to gobble up half of it. I want it so I can store insame ooodles of data. ( d ) I will definitely go with Windows 7 on my next machine (I am not a fan of Metro, so Windows 8 is out; though I hear that when using the Explorer shell and Explorer based apps, it's actually faster than Windows 7), but since I have the Vista OS and it's legit, I'll use this until 2017. I really appreciate your comments. Have a super weekend.

Thank you for your comments (very well thought out I must admit). Are you saying in your closing statements that I should stick with Windows XP x64 Edition? Will the stability I have with it remain as exploits are possible down the road? I wrote this on the XP x64 Forum; maybe you can give me your thoughts: ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I mentioned on the Vista forum that soon, I'll be ready "upgrade" to Vista x64 Ultimate in January. For some reason, the bios and SCSI subsystem on my HP XW8200 Workstation doesn't fully support Windows 7, so I'll move to Vista x64 instead (I ran a test installation back last year for a couple weeks and Vista ran REALLY well on my system). So that means I am on my last two months of Windows XP x64 Edition. As I mentioned in the other post, it's almost bittersweet, since I'm looking forward to using something more updated and supported, but my XP x64 installation runs so smoothly. I guess my concerns are two-fold. One is that support for current software will be increasingly dropped week by week, and month by month. Gradually, I won't be able to browse a modern web, and that concerns me. Also, I am concerned about the lack of support when it comes to Windows Updates after April. Now I know there are convoluted workarounds to allowing Windows Server 2003 updates to install on Windows XP x64 Edition, but even then; that's only fixes me until July 2015. So I figure I may as well jump to Vista now and enjoy three years of having a supported OS. That should last the life of the machine. I would love to stay on XP x64. I loved using three specific operating systems in my computing life: OS/2 Warp v3.0, Windows 2000 Professional and now Windows XP x64 Edition. They have been absolutely trouble free (acutally OS/2 had that single input queue freeze up issue but oh well...lol). But I wish there was a direct replacement for XP. I wish there was a newer version of Microsoft Windows that had a low memory footprint, and worked well with a wide variety of apps. XP was also easier to streamline thanks to nLite...lol. Oh well, thanks for the memories Windows XP.

Wow - this is VERY disappointing. I'll take a look at the WinSxS removal features in vLite, but they sound dangerous.

Really? Wow that's disappointing. So what will shrink it from the start? What is the benefit to slipstreaming? I thought if service pack leftovers could be clean, that maybe there are some updates that could be cleared too.

Yep. More exactly it was the "passive" form, "You had already been told so", implying "What did you think, that it was instead doable with a partition conversion and that it was easy?" LOL - Actually yes, I reluctantly take someone's final word without challenging it, and I've learned that while some see it as a contestant persoanlity trait, it's actually a good thing. Too many times when I've taken "no" for an answer and then pursued something further, I ended up getting my wish (whether it was finding a vinyl LP that every online and retail channel said was not available, or accomplishing a function on the PC that could not be done) When you think about it, the Win9x and Win2KPro forums are full of cases where users of those OSs were told "no", but because they were stubborn, they can now do many things on Win9x and Win2KPro that were deemed impossible. To me that sort of stubbornness is inspiring (off putting to some indeed...lol, but inspiring in terms of what it can accomplish) Nonetheless, I'm very appreciative of all of the information and ideas you've all offered.

I'm not sure that I follow jaclaz (???)

In XP (using nLite), I am familiar with using slipstreaming to reduce the size of the $hf_mig$ folder. I wonder if slipstreaming Vista updates into the source have the same exact effect on the WinSxS folder?

Wow nothing eh? Oh well - that's bumped it...lol

Wow! This is sounding VERY difficult. Like I said, I thought that a partition conversion utility would do the trick, but it's sounds like a process ridden with problems. I think come Januaray when I perform my installation of Vista x64, I will stick with NTFS using 4 KB clusters. Now I just need to figure out how to not let the MFT grow too much in size after I delete files. But that's for another thread.

At least with XP you have integrated wireless support. And you can support more modern browsers.

First off, I wanted to apologize; I never meant blast anyone. I think you know where I was coming from, and I'm sorry I misinterpreted the intended tone of resonses. Wow this is getting involved. I was just hoping to use a partition conversion utility. I will still try that though.

That's basically my plan. I would have tried v7 though. So maybe your saving me some work (exactly the reason I'm posting these questions I wonder if you have to remove sparse points/files first. I remember doing that when converting XP Pro to FAT32.

Who knows? The only way of knowing the answer to that and many other equally abstruse questions any of us may go on inventing, is to stop talking, and proceed to experimentation, with all due respect. I, personally, do not care for Vista x86 at all. **** When I proof read this; it sounds mean, but it's not meant to be (just matter of fact) **** With all due respect jaclaz, I have a plan to experiment, but there's nothing wrong with asking others to see if they have had issues first. Why would someone go and blindly repeat history, when someone else knows all of the caveats I'll encounter. So no; I will not "stop talking". It amazes me how people have that "Google is your freind" mentality. Nobody wants to converse or exchange ideas any more, and that's what this forum should be about. Besides jaclaz, if you're not interested in what I'm doing with Vista, you don't have to be the one to answer. Maybe others have an opinion on this.

Aside from all of that, will the proper working of the WinSxS folder be ensured under FAT32? Or will the absence of links (hard/symbolic) cause problems here?

That's how I am with my system. After a full cleanup and defragmentation once every two months, I boot it up, and simply log off the system when I am not using it. I only need to restart after Windows Updates.

Version 3.x and higher included indexing for faster message searching. I found that Thunderbird became slow after that, and that's when I switched to Outlook 2003. I never looked back. So I never ran past the last Thunderbird 2.x revision (2.0.0.23 or something like that). I loved Thunderbird up until that point. In all honesty though, I find even that Outlook is superior especially in terms of speed. Thunderbird as you know it somewhat lives on in the Seamonkey mail client.

The item of interest here was whether or not, FAT32 could support all of the folders and links in WinSxS without issue. I hate the bloat that seems to occur with WinSxS, but I know that over time there will be a LOT of folders.

I certainly appreciate your opinion. I'm not one of those who acts like, "Who Asked You?" I hate that when people say that; it's second place to when you ask someone a question and they say, "Google is your friend!" I hate that! LOL. ( a ) First off I always disable Indexing. I know Vista onwards makes more use of it in the start menu for that "Search Here" feature, but I don't mind slower searching (since my mindset is already set to "searching for something"). I would rather have the Indexing off and have those resources for unadultered speed of disk access or caching. I'd rather not have my system slower so that occasional searches are faster. ( b ) Next, with as much as 7 GB of RAM in my system, I turn paging off with XPx64, so I hope to do the same with Vista. Also I run an HP Workstation so I do not utilize Hibernation.or power saving features that store images to the HDD. ( c ) I would have to disagree (albeit with anecdotal evidence) that FAT32 performance benefits are nothing more than "pure folly". There is documentation supporting better speed of FAT32 on small drives < 120 GB. I will have to find that for you, but the speed increase is quite real I assure you. ( d ) The NTFS features that you cite not being able to live without (ie. sparse files and hard links/mountpoints) are not features I want. I just want to have a straight ahead file system. I don't even need permissions. Just a couple partially unrelated things, but they do illuminate my mindset towards operating systems. I hate this idea that for new OS interfaces to be popular, it's believed that I have to be able to hover my mouse pointer over an icon, and have it tell me five things at once via tool tips (ie, author, filesize, size on disk, version number, blah, blah, blah!). If I want the filesize, or any other info, I will right-click and choose Properties. I am somewhat saddened to move to Vista and upwards, because I am going to miss how lightweight Windows XP was (my truue favourite was Windows 2000). But to stay up to date, there are no "lightweight" options. Why can't Microsoft make an OS revision that will complement older hardware or even simpler hardware? Thanks for listening.

Occasionally when I mess up with system DLL's or the shellstyle of a windows 8/8.1 theme, it will force windows to load classic style buttons/drawn textures. It is still in the system. Just not available in the theme selection. See this is what prompted my original question. I figured the system would have to fall back to SOMETHING if objects could not be rendered. I was sure it had to be in there. A lot of naysayers commonly urge others to give up when something is too hard to find out about, you know, so that's why I'm stubborn. Now just to find a way to make it the default desktop appearance.

It's a U320 Drive and it's a Fijitsu Disk (I'm not home so I can't check). It's 10,000 rpm. Whether it NTFS or FAT32, XP smokes on it. Vista was installed last year on it for a couple weeks test run, and it ran well too. By the way, the partition takes up the entire disk. My reason for doing it is for the slight performance improvement gained on smaller partitions. In every instance I've tried, I find XP and Win2KPro ran better on FAT32 on partition sizes smaller than 120 GB. So on larger partitions and servers, I use NTFS. On smaller fast disks, I prefer FAT32 without the overhead of NTFS. Sometimes the added features and stability of NTFS aren't needed. I'd rather the simplicity of speed of FAT32 on smaller disks.

I understand that Vista/7/8 cannot install to a FAT32 partition, so I was going to convert the installation afterwards with PartitionMagic. Supposing I can get this done, I am concerned that FAT32 limitations will damage the WinSxS folder because of folder entry limits. Is this the case, or am I stewing over nothing? Will Windows Update work properly? I have found that on XPx64, my 80 gb SCSI drive takes a performance hit with NTFS (4k clusters), whereas it's faster with the simpler FAT32 system. I assume this would be the same case for Vista, no?

I was quite concerned about what real world security risks there might be if I continued using Office 2003 after the support cutoff date. I am sure that retaining Outlook 2003 would increase the security risk, but how about the other applications?