nIlte before or after? (FDV fileset for XP Topic)

[PMikeP]

Oops. Meant to post this under the exisiting "FDV fileset for XP" Topic. But I don't see a way to delete or move a post. (Moderator, can you do it for me?) Sorry.

Hi Fred:

I'm anxious to try your fileset for XP, mostly because I'm paranoid about Internet hackers. (Listen to a few episodes of Steve Gibson's SecurityNow podcads and you'll be paranoid too.) nLite has worked well for me for a year now, but given your fileset for W2K, I assume your XP will be even more locked down than nLite when you're finished slicing and dicing.

I know I should try this before asking so as to not waste your time. But my particular setup is very particular about installing nVidia's AHCI SATA drivers. (Apparently it needs some direction in a PnPInterface instruction. A Moderator over in the BartPE forums helped me work it through.) And I really, really like Nuhi's registry tweak page and the unattended install page for further directory tweaks, etc. Sooo...

I know your warning about two mechanics. That was for W2K, where you were removing IE. I don't get the impression you're removing IE from XP. (So what about "zones" in XP?) I'm trying to keep it simple without having to learn about someone else's Integrator, etc. Will I be able to build an XP using your fileset in HFSLIP then run it thru nLite to integrate nVidia's AHCI driver and do the nLite tweaks? Or would it be better to integrate the ACHI driver first with nLite and feed that to HFSLIP as a SOURCE? And then run that result thru nLite again for the Registry tweaks. (I'm aware of the "keep files" requirement for going HFSLIP to nLite.)

Thanks in advance,

Mike <><

Edited March 21, 2010 by PMikeP

[keirkei]

On the hfslip web site, it says that if you are going to use nlite that you should do so on the SOURCESS folder after using hfslip. (Guidelines tab & select Other important notes)

Perhaps that's what you might need to do.

Edit: I stand corrected. Tommyp said it better. Thanks Tommyp! (I learned something new today! ~lol~)

Edited March 21, 2010 by keirkei

[tommyp]

It's either one or the other when using FDV's fileset. Either you use his set -or- you use nlite. Not both.

[fdv]

Tom's got the right answer.

As for reg tweaks, give my HIVE*.* files a try. They have a zillion tweaks already in them, and they cut out a LOT of crap that nLite doesn't.

My fileset is compatible with driverpacks so that's what I recommend for people there.

Give my set a try as well as nLite and compare functionality and installation size. In a VM, this is easy to do and will tell you what you're better off doing.

So FWIW, here are the items that can be removed in XP, if you haven't done it already.

Remember... My name is in the nLite credits for a reason

I know what nLite removes, I am kinda looking for -new- things.

As I look through this list I see that there are indeed things I do not and would never remove... and I'll tell you why for each.

Communication tools

Comtrol Test Terminal Program

Connection Manager - I don't recall

FrontPage Extensions

H323 MSP

Internet Connection Wizard

Internet Information Services (IIS)

IP Conferencing

MAC Bridge

MSMail and MAPI

MSN Explorer

Netmeeting

NetShell Cmd-Tool

Network Diagnostic

Network Setup Wizard - various dependencies

NWLink IPX/SPX/NetBIOS Protocol

Peer-to-Peer

Share Creation Wizard

Synchronization Manager

TAPI Application Support

TCP/IP Version 6 -- this is 221kb.

Vector Graphics Rendering (VML)

Web Folders

Windows Messenger

Blaster/Nachi removal tool

Disk and Profile Quota -- these add up to 500kb

Document Templates

DR Watson -- this is an ENORMOUSLY helpful file and it's only 45kb

Extensible Storage Engine (Esent97)

FAT to NTFS converter -- 26Kb

Help and Support

IExpress Wizard -- this is very useful and it's only 112kb

Manual Install and Upgrade -- see note

MS Agent

MS XML 2.0

Private Character Editor

Remote Installation Services (RIS) -- see note

Search Assistant

Security Center

Shell Media Handler - Adobe CS4 dependency

Symbolic Debugger (NTSD)

Tour

User account pictures

Visual Basic 5 runtime

Web View

You might be tempted to think that some components are bigger than they are simply because they're listed -- not true. Sure, FAT to NTFS seems trivial, but look how small it is! What if you want to recover data on a legacy system? 26Kb is a small price to pay for this 'what if'.

Manual install and RIS: RIS doesn't install by default on the HDD. This is in nLite to delete the files from your CD. Manual install would kill DOS-based installs and I actually have users who do that -- they install from another HD instead of the CDROM. That 44Mb you see in nLite also reflects files on the CD that do not full get copied to HDD -- so you're not keeping 44Mb of garbage.

Disk and profile quota -- I use my fileset in an office environment, and others do as well (or used the Win2k set, I don't know about XP yet). Anyway, 500Kb is pretty small to retain a feature that some admins might want. Same for Remote Registry Service: try using the Winternals PS utilities on remote systems without it.

The Adobe CS4 has several crap files it requires, so I put them in OFF2007.INF (I am going to change the name of that). Anyway you control that the old fashioned way -- in SYSSETUP under [infs.Always]. Although IE installs by default, it's in there too -- easy to comment out with one semicolon.

As for services, I killed a bunch after reference checking them on Blackviper's site. If any others can TRULY be removed, let me know. Open AXANT5.INF and have a look under [addreg.services]. Those are service stoppers. (Some services are totally removed, like indexing. I don't want to type an explanation why for the next 45 minutes, but the "indexing service" in search might say enabled when it doesn't exist. If you add the reg key for it not to start, it would appear in the list of services (again, when it's not even on the system).

Edited March 23, 2010 by fdv