I can't get XP to use less than 40 MB RAM...

[spystyle]

...

P.S.- Can you give us a better look at your system (specs, boot time [generalization], etc.)? It would be interesting to see where your system stands .

Thanks for the peeps and info.

I use virtual PC to test my ISOs but the good ones make it to CD. I tried this OS on a Pentium 3, 700mhz, with 192 MB RAM and 30 GB HDD. Also a cheapy AGP video card. Ram usage was about 40. Boot time, though I did not use a stop watch, seemed like 20 seconds from power button to desktop, that's including the RAM count. MinLogon is blazing fast.

Mala is a frontend for MAME, the arcade game emulator. This tiny OS is just for arcade machines. Mala launches automatically at boot.

Cheers,

Craig

[DL.]

It's interesting to compare your own moderately nLited and rarely reinstalled system to the really hardcore barebones-systems.

RAM usage doesn't even come close, but then again the more RAM you've got the more it will use. Doing a fresh install will probably help a bit.

About the number of processes:

For XP you should definitely get below 30, even for Vista you should hover around that mark.

But it depends on your hardware too, if it needs some drivers/progs to be running (=using a process of their own) at all time you may have to get by with a few more (mostly for laptops).

My very functional setup has 13 processes including taskmgr, going lower will make you lose some functionality (my temporary gaming setup has 11). Below 10 (excluding taskmgr) is not possible unless you kill Explorer too.

[godfromdfo]

Below 10 (excluding taskmgr) is not possible unless you kill Explorer too.

yes it is... I will upload a pic to imageshack a bit later..

Edited April 30, 2008 by godfromdfo

[godfromdfo]

Here's a pic of my os (GodlyXP) which by the way I will probably be releasing soon (without serial ) and it's fully functional, has theme and looks good.. can play every type of media available on it (games, videos, music) and such.. anyway here's just a screenshot..

oh, and that's 10 services excluding the taskmanager, the os is also SP3! amazing huh? =]

PS: If I removed the stuff I like such as theme and made the graphics like 16bit and all that I can get it to around 30-32mb...

Edited April 30, 2008 by godfromdfo

[footballking3420]

There's somebody over at Bold_Fortune Forums that has his install down to 25mb & uses cmd as his shell instead of explorer. You would have to go through a lot of work though to get an install like his. He has several of his system32 DLLs stripped using ResHacker.

[godfromdfo]

There's somebody over at Bold_Fortune Forums that has his install down to 25mb & uses cmd as his shell instead of explorer. You would have to go through a lot of work though to get an install like his. He has several of his system32 DLLs stripped using ResHacker.

Ok, I removed stuff such as themes and got mine down to 21mb, I will upload it soon

ok here, 1:

Now, if I disabled taskman I would have had about 20-21mb! which is much more then that bold guy, easily. (and still alot of stuff on that pic I could have removed!) anyway, that got 24mb, pics below:

2:

Well, now this one is amazing, I got it under 20mb! now, if you have cmd as a shell with this setup (which can still play games and other media flawlessly) it would only be 20mb's at most! but if you want to just autolaunch that emu thing then you don't even need to use 20mb's, here's a pic:

Notice: The OS I'm running the tests on is xp SP3, if it had been xp gold (which i'm sure bold used) then it would have been cut down to around 13-16mbs (literaly)

Also, I have not messed around with dll's or anything like that... so it can most likely go even lower if we worked together, however I probably wouldn't remove dll's because this os was made for gaming and media, and internet =]]

ok, final pic ^_^:

Edited April 30, 2008 by godfromdfo

[spystyle]

It's interesting to compare your own moderately nLited and rarely reinstalled system to the really hardcore barebones-systems.

I don't understand this statement. Please elaborate.

RAM usage doesn't even come close, but then again the more RAM you've got the more it will use. Doing a fresh install will probably help a bit.

Fresh install ? This is a fresh install.

Regarding RAM : It's true, the more RAM you have the more will be used. Here is a pic showing all different amounts of RAM and their usage:

About the number of processes:

For XP you should definitely get below 30, even for Vista you should hover around that mark.

But it depends on your hardware too, if it needs some drivers/progs to be running (=using a process of their own) at all time you may have to get by with a few more (mostly for laptops).

My very functional setup has 13 processes including taskmgr, going lower will make you lose some functionality (my temporary gaming setup has 11). Below 10 (excluding taskmgr) is not possible unless you kill Explorer too.

Groovy, care to upload your lastsession ? I would take a look at that. Since I've made a skeletonized XP for the arcade computers I was thinking of making a slim one for the regular desktop computers, but I don't know how.

Cheers,

Craig

[spystyle]

godfromdfo, you say you're going to upload that? I'd like to take a look. How did you make it?

Thanks,

Craig

[DL.]

@godfromdfo: You've disabled Eventlog and PlugPlay to get only one svchost, I haven't tried that since those the most important services (along with RpcSs).

@spystyle: In the first two I was talking about my own system.

It's not that extreme, but made to work well for normal everyday usage without causing any problems. I'd rather let it use a few more MBs of RAM than having a system that doesn't work because of missing components.

I hate reinstalling so my current installation has been running fine (used almost daily) since 2006-01-28, but I will make a new nLited setup now that SP3 is out. I've found a few minor mistakes recently in the lastsession.ini I used back then so I will make a new one soon, but you can get my services config (the most important part of all) if you like. It works for me, but it may or may not work for you depending on which features you use (every system and user is unique).

I'm not sure it's 100% accurate, I may have done some minor changes manually and forgot to set them in the file too:

Dserv.reg

Edited May 1, 2008 by DL.

[jmbattle]

godfromdfo, please post a guide that explains the components that have been removed.

In addition, which services do you have running? Here is the services configuration that my XP SP2 laptop is currently using:

Here is the system after booting:

Cheers,

James

x

Edited May 1, 2008 by jmbattle

[leinan]

Hi can't believe that you can actually use 40mb of memory using WinXP SP3. If its not too much to ask can anyone help me how to make this. I have WinXp cd and dying to try it out using nlite and SP3. Please, please..

Hi jmbattle your desktop looks neat.

Edited May 1, 2008 by leinan

[jmbattle]

Well, I have managed to shave approximately 2.5mb from the secondary svchost.exe memory footprint by disabling the 'Shell Hardware Detection', 'Network Connections' and 'Telephony' services.

And once again, here is the process list after booting:

As far as I am aware, the remaining services cannot be changed without severely restricting functionality.

Cheers,

James

x

[DL.]

@All and especially leinan:

It all depends on what you're after, a barebones supertweaked setup only for gaming or something that works for most other tasks as well.

Getting a system with plenty of RAM and which is used for regular everyday tasks down below 40MB of RAM usage is a total no no:

-The more RAM you've got the more it will use (mentioned multiple times earlier in this thread).

-With a config like that you will run into problems or annoyances where you have to manually start services all the time just to do simple tasks.

@jmbattle:

Disabling "Network Connections" will make you unable to configure those (at least in the GUI).

I don't quite remember what it was, but there was some unwanted side effect (not just the Autoplay-tab) from disabling "Shell Hardware Detection" (enough for me to keep it for my regular config).

If you have a router and have set a static IP you could disable "DHCP Client".

[jmbattle]

Well, my home laptop is used primarily for web, email, and torrents, to organise my iPod (via Winamp), watch films, stream BBC World, occasionally burn DVDs, and every so often play around with Amiga emulation. For such tasks, this lightweight Windows XP installation is absolutely perfect.

Productivity applications are seldom used here (although there are some Portable programmes backed up on a USB HD) - I spend all day using MS Office and the Adobe suite at work, hence it's not something I am in a terrible hurry to install on my home system!

Cheers,

James

x

Edited May 1, 2008 by jmbattle

[AgiHammerklau]

You asked, how to find the dependencies.

There is a pretty nice onboard tool on your windows CD :

depends.exe (old)

http://www.dependencywalker.com/ (newer)

Just for info

Agi