vlite suggestions

[MRGCAV]

Nuhi,

You are doing a great job with nlite and now vlite.

Where can I get a step by step document on both nlite and vlite ?

Vlite suggestions:

I like to partition my computers (laptop HP DV6000t) onto 6-10 partitions and seperate my programs from my documents, temp files, Page file, Backup, OS1,OS2,OS3 etc... so when windows crashes I can just recopy my windows folder from my backup partition to my OS partition.

Anything you can do to help with creating the multipul partitions during installation would be great.

1. Include a "add/remove programs" shortcut.

2. Ability to unpack/extract compresses drivers. Like the HP SP3xxxx drivers.

3. Better instructions on how to add 3rd party apps.

4. Default details view.

5. Default show quick launch.

Thanks

MRGCAV@gmail.com

[jamieo]

Vista setup has a very nice interface to make all those partitions and once done you won't have to configure them again. Additionally you can configure unattend.xml to reformat and install vista to the target partition.

..however, while it makes sense to keep the OS separate from everything else (so your documents, installers etc. will be safe during reinstallation) I do not recommend you make so many partitions. I had a similar setup to what you propose and used to partition os1/os2/documents/storage/ghost. What I found is that you'll quickly find one partition is too small while the others have lots of space free which is essentially wasted - this is especially the case with laptop drives and cannot really be avoided as you are essentially partitioning the available free space. Also, remember that there is really no performance benefit to moving page files, temp folders etc, to a separate partition on the same drive.

In my case I had plenty of free space left on my documents and ghost partitions but ran out of space on my storage partition. I changed the sizes around a couple of times but then you just end up running out of space on a different partition. Therefore, I have merged my documents, storage and ghost partitions into one and made a small fat32 dos partition (~180MB) just so I can into boot dos and use ghost etc. (which can write it's images to the ntfs storage partition). By consolidating all the unused free space into one partition I was able to increase the size of my previously full 50GB storage partition to 75GB with a final gain of over 15GB in free space after copying the contents of the other partitions to it.

If you are using unattend.xml I can post the xml to reformat and install vista to particular partition. I wouldn't recommend getting setup to configure all the partitions automatically though (unless you are going into mass production!) as it's a one time thing and I prefer not to take the risk of vista wiping all my stuff!

[bledd]

6-10 partitions what for? you'll just be hurting performance

i can understand 3 partitions.. (1x hidden acronis backup partition) a main os partition and a data partition

-vlite is not about adding applications, its primary goal is to remove components

Edited July 10, 2007 by bledd

[Legolash2o]

lol you need to re-arrange things better then lol

Edited July 10, 2007 by legolash2o

[Legolash2o]

I have 2 partitions

1.Windows XP

2. Everything else but i have sub folders like. Documents, Software, Computer Stuff (Drivers, windows disks etc...), Media(with subfolders of Movies, Music, TV Shows n Music Vids), then i have Gaming(in there is another 2 folders with disks(ISO of games) & Games folder where i install the games too.

So its like

C Drive ------ Program Files

----------------Windows

----------------etc...

Partition2 ---- Computer Stuff-----Drivers (Drivers for my computer and any other computers i fix)

---------------------------------------Windows Disks (Windows XP, 2000, Vista ISO's all legit!)

---------------------------------------Broadband Details (Broadband emails, logon details etc...

----------------Media---------------Movies (Movies, DVD's etc...)

--------------------------------------Music (All my music collection)

--------------------------------------Music Videos (All my music videos)

--------------------------------------TV Shows (TV Shows like lost, ugly betty which i record from my tv card etc...)

------------------Games-------------Disks (ISO image of games

---------------------------------------Games (Wheres games are installed)

--------------Documents-------------My Documents

----------------------------------------User 2 Documents

----------------------------------------User 3, etc...

Theres more than that but everything is really easy to find and i dont have to worry bout space issues, like what Jamieo said, one drive may be too small while another is too big which is very annoying

Edited July 10, 2007 by legolash2o

[iuli_kyle]

-vlite is not about adding applications, its primary goal is to remove components

Yeah, but it wil be a complete customizing application if it will a have a application adding tab !

[MRGCAV]

jamieo,

I respect your opinions. A little about me. I am a Computer engineer (with a masters degree). I have worked on mainfrain systems for the last 25 years.

I mess with windows for fun and to correct Microsofts flaws.

6-10 partiotionis not alot. It is better to have more than less partitions on the same physical hard drive.

I prefer FAT32 for for data recovery reasons.

Vista with its NTFS only partition was VERY STUPID MICROSOFT !

My usual XP partitions are,

1. Booting 400MB

2. OS1 XP Pro SP2 15,000MB

3. OS2 XP Pro SP2 Copy 16,000MB

4. OS3 Vista (Was Windows Media center) 32,000 MB

5. Pagefile 3.5 times your RAM size

6. Temp & TMP Files 6000MB

7. Program files 32000MB

8. Documents. 25,000GB

9. OS backup (I keep daily copies of the existing windows folders) 45,000GB

10. Download. (I download then virus scan this partition) 40,000GB

my computers are very fast, Efficent and when an OS fails (BSOD) I just reboot onto a different OS and recopy the backup windows folder to the failin OS drive. Reboot and I am back in business in less then ten minutes with NO DATA LOSS.

COOL huh !

I hope this clarifies what I do. Each is done for a very good reason. Each partition serves a specific function.

As for Partition size, you need to study and document your Computer habits and adjust the size of your partitions accordingly.

Proper Partition planning is essential in a multiboot computer.

I have recentally discovered unattend.xml and am eager to try it. Any website you know of for unattend.xml ?

Bledd - I am improving preformance, not hurting it. Feel free to email me.

legolash2o - I fail to see the humor. You are not multi booting like I am. If you want to put all your eggs in two baskets (partitions) the that is your choice. I will choose not to. Games, Music videos ???? I thought this was forumn for serious users. Hmmmmm

iuli_kyle - I agree with you. Both nlite and Vlite need to take the next step in their evolution. What good is a stripped down version of windows if you can not customize it ? Vlite needs the same options as nlite already has. I am confident it will.

I was hoping for more helpful suggestions rather than critizism. But people tend to critize what they do not understand. Its human nature.

Thank you for your help, to those who helped.

NEWS:

I have figured our how to subdivide and relocate Windows Vista user folder & Program files to another drive after installing it. Still very beta.

MRGCAV@gmail.com

Edited July 18, 2007 by MRGCAV

[MRGCAV]

How to relocate the entire USER folder in Vista.

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=192697

Posted April 7, 2007 Comments(36)

Here lies my experience moving my entire User Profile folder structure, including Default, Public, and any local users.

In my search for a solution, the only two easy ways I found to move the user profile directory locations from the system drive is to

1. Set the User Profile folder during setup using an unattended install file.

2. Move the individual folders inside your user profile, which can be done using explorer (which will update the registry keys HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders).

However, this was not good enough for me, I wanted my actual user profile folder to be moved to a seperate partition/volume, including registry settings. I discovered that it is not actually that hard, provided you’re comfortable with mass replacing registry keys and values.

Here is how I moved my user profile location. Please note that I wanted all of the profiles moved, included Public and Default, so some of these steps can be skipped if you do not want that:

1. Make sure you have a complete backup of your system!

2. Copy the original Default Profile directory to the new location (e.g. from C:\Users\Default to D:\Users\Default).

3. Copy the original Public Profile directory to the new location (e.g. from C:\Users\Public to D:\Users\Public).

4. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList.

5. Change the value of the Default key to the new user profile location (e.g. D:\Users\Default).

6. Change the value of the Public key to the new user profile location (e.g. D:\Users\Public).

7. Change the value of the ProfilesDirectory to the new user profile location (e.g. D:\Users).

8. At this point, you need to restart and log back in as a different user that has never logged in before and therefore does not have a profile created. In my case, the Administrator user had never logged in before so I enabled it so that Administrator could log in and used that. You can enable Administrator login by loading Computer Management and then go to User Accounts, edit the properties for Administrator, and then uncheck Disable Login.

9. After logging in for the first time with the new user account, you will see “Creating Desktop” and other things like that while Windows is creating your profile. Note that the new profile should be created in the new location.

10. After logging in, try to close as many applications as possible. This will prevent most files from being locked so that you cannot copy them.

11. Copy the entire original user profiles folder from the original location to the new location (e.g. C:\Users\* to D:\Users\). (See next step after copy starts).

12. There are a few things to note during this copy. There were thousands of .TMP files that were locked and would not copy. I just skipped these files. I held down Alt-S so that I could see all of the skipped files and make sure that there were only .TMP files being skipped. Yes, this took a little while, but at least I was confident that I got all of my files copied. This process could probably be made easier using the command prompt or powershell.

13. If, in your case, there are some files that will not copy, you can run procexp.exe, which is file provided by sysinternals. Then do a Find Handle and search for part of the filename. procexp will tell you which programs are locking the file. As long as you closed as many programs as you could, though, this should not happen.

14. Find and download a program that will do a Search & Replace on the registry. I will not suggest one because I did not find one single program that worked perfectly. I ended up downloading a few different freeware applications and using all of them.

15. Using the Registry Search & Replace program, do a search for the original user profile folder and replace it with the new user profile folder (e.g. search for “C:\Users” and replace with “D:\Users”. Note that some of the applications I used would only change values and not key names. However, the keys that needed to be changed were all related to MuiCache. I do not know if these actually need to be updated. I did just to make sure.

16. Log out. Log back in with the same user. Repeat step 14 until there is nothing left to replace. The reason for this step is that on logout, some programs seem to update the registry using the old user profile path.

17. Run regedit.exe and do a search for the original user profile path and make sure it does not exist. The reason for this step is because (as noted in step 13), I did not trust any of the Registry Search & Replace programs I used. I ended up needing to update about a dozen of the keys and values manually, since the search & replace missed them.

18. So that you can easily find programs that do not use the registry and hard-coded profile paths, rename your original profile folder (e.g. rename C:\Users to C:\~Users).

19. Log out. Log back in as your usual user. Everything should be working correctly except for programs that use a “hardcoded” user profile location.

20. There are two easy methods that can be used to find programs that use a “hardcoded” profile location and are still looking for the original user profile path. You can use the procexp.exe trick mentioned above and search for handles in the original profile location. You can also monitor the oringal profile location to see if any new folders or files were created. For example, in my case, FolderShare created some folders and files in the directory C:\Users\MyUsername\AppData\Local\FolderShare\. So, I updated the FolderShare settings to point to the different path and then deleted the C:\Users directory (note that C:\~Users still existed as a backup).

21. Since you are now confident that all of your data has been moved (right??????), you can deleted the backup of the original user profile location (e.g. C:\~Users).

This procedure worked flawlessly for me. Everything user-related is now on a completely different volume, and I can sleep a little better at night!

http://joshmouch.wordpress.com/

For step 14: Use Resplendence Registry Manager v5.50

Email me for a copy.

Jay

MRGCAV@gmail.com

[nuhi]

MRGCAV, I'm short on guides, gotta update the online help as well. Basically it should be all clear to you once the program is started, there are no "complex moves".

What did you mean by "Include a 'add/remove programs' shortcut" ?

Thx for the heads up on the profiles relocation but that is doable only after the installation, maybe I will write some little app to run on first logon but that doesn't sound clean nor reliable. So there really isn't an Unattended setting for that...haven't checked yet.

[John L. Galt]

This is basically what I asked for in the Suggestion pinned thread lol...Although it would be even better if I could split out Programs as well.

Jay, it seems you are a fan of Linux installs as well, where we can have 10 (or more) partitions to help separate out functions and trees to really prevent fragmentation....I, for one, say your profile structure is great, and I am considering something similar, except that, rather than moving these from the inside of Vista, I want to build a completely custom Vista to install everything where I choose for it to go, separating out things like User profiles, Temp directories, making junctions for legacy apps to find the right things (although why M$ decided on junctions for some of those folders, like Application Data, which, when clicked on in Explorer, really takes you nowhere, instead of just symlinking it to that *anyone* is redirected to the correct location is beyond me), Programs, and possibly other Special Folders (Ideally, separate partitions for Documents, Pictures, Videos, etc would be great, along with a separate drive for downloads....)

I am currently researching all the various methods to do this, including having a WinRE environment for repair as well as possibly a hidden partition for OS backups, and another for Data backups....there is a lot of info out there, and a lot of steps to be performed in order to get this done correctly.....

[Legolash2o]

I forgot to mention i have also got windows Vista ultimate x64 on a different partition (same hard drive as the XP) the rest are on a different hard drive

[Legolash2o]

I forgot to mention i have also got windows Vista ultimate x64 on a different partition (same hard drive as the XP) the rest are on a different hard drive

I thought this was forumn for serious users. Hmmmmm

A.what humour, wasnt trying to be funny, that is how my partitions are setup

B.I am a serious user n you dont know me so that comment was pretty much pointless

1. Booting 400MB

2. OS1 XP Pro SP2 15,000MB

3. OS2 XP Pro SP2 Copy 16,000MB

4. OS3 Vista (Was Windows Media center) 32,000 MB

5. Pagefile 3.5 times your RAM size

6. Temp & TMP Files 6000MB

7. Program files 32000MB

8. Documents. 25,000GB

9. OS backup (I keep daily copies of the existing windows folders) 45,000GB

10. Download. (I download then virus scan this partition) 40,000GB

Woah!! i understand about keeping documents,OS Backup and obviously the OS's but thats way to many paritions and seems like alot of work and complicated, sometimes its best to keep things simple and that really isnt, at all.

Like why not weekly instead of daily, ur keeping the important stuff seperate anyway so you wont lose anything or just back after youve done something major, ie. tweaks software install so there is less chance of backup virus n stuff (even though u have an AntiVirus but still anything is possible). Thats just over complicated things. A

And whats the point of having 2 windows XP Pro just incase 1 fails u have made a daily backup so why not use that otherwise the backup partition becomes useless because your just logging onto the other windows to just replace the windows folder or whatever. Sorry to say

Edited July 23, 2007 by legolash2o

[MRGCAV]

John L. Galt

Actualy I statred in unix systems. I like linux but rarely mess with it now. Too many distobution flavors and poor mainstream support.

Feel free to share your work and ideas.

Nuhi, How are you ?

Whats the news on windows 7 7lite ???

Not much progress here. 18months ago I invented the first method to move the ?:/user folder.

See above

Now I have to do it for Windows 7 x64.

Ohhh the fun of beta testing.

MRGCAV@gmail.com