FDV Files - Remove More Stuff

[saugatak]

MODIFICATION TO FDV FILESET TO REMOVE OS/2 SUBSYSTEM

FDV's fileset removes POSIX files, but leaves OS/2 subsystem untouched. At this point in time, I doubt too many people need the OS/2 subsystem.

I think this is the way to do it. I'll test it out tomorrow after the latest Windows updates come out tomorro and include them in my latest HFSLIP FDV Win2k and report back.

This link tells you which files need to be removed to get rid of OS/2 and POSIX.

http://arstechnica.com/guides/tweaks/memory-1.ars/2

WINNT/system32 directory: OS2.exe, OS2SRV.exe, PSXSS.EXE, OS2SS.exe, and POSIX.exe

PSXSS.EXE and POSIX.exe are commented out in LAYOUT and TXTSETUP in FDVfileset, but the OS2 files are left alone. FDV, is there a reason for this?

In addition, there are the following files not mentioned in the above article:

WINNT\system32\os2\oso001.009

WINNT\system32\os2\dll\doscalls.dll

WINNT\system32\os2\dll\netapi.dll

I commented out all of the above OS2 files in LAYOUT and TXTSETUP as follows (example taken from TXTSETUP, same files as LAYOUT but numbers differ):

[sourceDisksFiles.x86]

;doscalls.dll = 1,,,,,,,8,0,0

;netapi.os2 = 1,,,,,,,8,0,0,netapi.dll

;os2.exe = 1,,,,,,,2,1,0

;os2srv.exe = 1,,,,,,,2,1,0

;os2ss.exe = 1,,,,,,,2,1,0

;oso001.009 = 1,,,,,,_x,6,1,0

What I found weird is that there are a bunch of files that appear to be related to the weird "oso001.009" file which appear in both TXTSETUP and LAYOUT

oso001.007 = 1,,,,,,_x,6,1,3

;oso001.009 = 1,,,,,,_x,6,1,0

oso001.010 = 1,,,,,,_x,6,1,3

oso001.012 = 1,,,,,,_x,6,1,3

oso001.016 = 1,,,,,,_x,6,1,3

oso001.029 = 1,,,,,,_x,6,1,3

These files look like they relate to the OS/2 subsystem ("6" is the key to OS/2) but aside from "oso001.009" I wasn't able to find any other file starting with "oso" so I left those alone.

[Oleg_II]

The only issue I see is that when you make so many mods to TommyP's and FDV's filesets, and then they come out with new ones, you have to make those mods again.

That is why I ask fdv if he agrees me doing the job with commenting CHM and HLP files - there are 400+ files to find and comment in 2 files and if he comes with the new version of files

As you suggest including some modifications proposed by users, I'd suggest making a plugin system - sub batch files that acomplish small but concrete purposes. For examle, fdv agrees me to comment out CHM and HLP but he wants to include an INF file that will install these files if needed (and I understand why - some people could ask him for this). It means the file names won't be included in DELFILES and the files will still in the source. And I would like to have a smaller source.

This example is very easy because I can still have a list of files and can include their names in DELFILES myself. But with a pluging system apart from a Basic set of IE removal files we may have a batch that could delete the files specified in say DELFILESPLUS from the source for those who want a smoller distributive There could be lists of files possible to delete and everyone can choose which of the list he would like to include in this DELFILESPLUS (for example, only CHM, only HLP or both types).

Edited October 10, 2005 by Oleg_II

[Oleg_II]

COMPDATA - is just a folder with TXT and HTM files. I don't know exactly what are they for but I don't think they are functional.

LANG - I don't know about issues with M$ Office as I don't use it I use Open Office. But don't think there should be issues either. I know for sure that Office 97 and Office 2k hadn't any issues with this folder as I installed a few laptops in our office with these versions and they are working now using 3 different languages.

I heard (I don't know for sure, just read about it somewhere) that one of the folders is needed for installing Recovery Console. Sorry no more info. I don't install Recovery Console too - I use DOS version of Drive Image that can be run directly from W2k and reboot to DOS utility (it's a part of big software, I use only 7 files from the package and don't install it at all

[saugatak]

Here are some links on Office 2003 and the language problem. It appears that if you remove languages, you have difficulties autoupdating Office 2003.

The fact that I can't use AutoUpdater doesn't concern me since I am using FDV's fileset. I'm wondering if not having all the languages will prevent manual hotfixes to Office 2003, i.e., download the hotfix, extract it and run it.

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...20updates&st=10

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...04entry402004

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=41553

[tommyp]

You can remove tons of junk from the mdac too. I wrote a script to yank it off the source, which I typically run after running nlite. I based this script from something I read a while back... the pre-nlite days. I attached the file. It's a destructive process.... because it deletes files from the sourcess folder. To run, place this file alongside the hfslip.cmd file and run it. It creates a folder called optional and puts all the crapola there.

z4_mdac.cmd

Edited October 10, 2005 by tommyp

[fdv]

and if he comes with the new version of files

Oleg_II, don't worry, your changes will be incorporated into the next version (removing help, that is).

i have thought about deleting help files from source and i will probably be addressing that as well. (or, i might recommend searching for *.ch_ and deleting the results from i386

and then they come out with new ones, you have to make those mods again.

saugatak - well, the thing is, my fileset is intended to be as universal as possible. for example, there are folks who use the OS/2 subsystem, so i left it in. it's easy to ditch, though.

i dont have time this month but perhaps it's a good idea to consider removing calc, paint, notepad, os2 subsys, etc. and put in a seperate INF to install them if someone wants them? i'd welcome input on that i guess. i'm not in love with the idea because i don't really want to keep up two filesets. not sure. of course, there is always nlite, but IMHO it does not clear a system of IE quite like my files do (nlite's not really meant to though; nuhi and i have discussed this in emails and are both comfortable with what our seperate projects do).

Edited October 10, 2005 by fdv

[fdv]

saugatak - pretty good work there. i wrote elsewhere about os/2 subsystem... maybe i should remove its files and add an INF to install it if people want it. there are folks who use old programming tools that make use of it.

Oleg_II, yeah, COMPDATA is junk.

about languages generally - my fileset has more global fans than users in my own country, so i am hesitant to comment them out.

to illustrate -- let's see if i can get this story right ...

a computer security consultant in poland flew to england. he met with a ceo of a company he was going to do some consulting work for there, and over dinner, he was mentioning removing internet explorer using a fileset downloaded from the internet. the information technology guy was there at dinner as well, and this guy just laughed. the consultant asked "what?" thinking the techie was thinking it couldn't be done. the techie walked over to a nearby laptop and brought up my website... this company had already started using my fileset.

[Oleg_II]

fdv

I'm not talking about removing languages automatically with the script because I also use some of them B)

It's just an old trick and very simple for manual tweaking - open the folder, find the languages that are not used and delete them. If no languages are used - delete the folder itself. It could be done manually according to your needs, no need to implement it it your set.

I've just downloaded tommyp's CMD for removing MDAC files. I'm not too strong in scripting, just using others ideas As I understand the script will move the files mentioned in it to another folder and update txtsetup.sif. Does it mean that the same can be done with CHM, HLP and any othe files I want to remove from the source - the script can move them to another folder and delete them from txtsetup.sif and dosnet.inf?

If I'm wright - that's what I meant with pluging system! We may have separated batch files for removing different files from the source and updating necessery INFs. That could be simplified version of batch-nLite for non-professionals

By the way if you are going to remove POSIX and OS/2 files I suppose you just comment them but the stay in the source. I uderstand why - there are always people whon need something that you think is not important. Like me - I need Help System so I need the files for it in the source. But it could be greate if one can have a choice to remove or leave the files and can get his source as slim as possible with this. If tommyp confirms his batch could be modified we can get another one for removing POSIX and OS/2 files too

Edited October 10, 2005 by Oleg_II

[saugatak]

@Oleg, I looked at a bunch of the files in COMPDATA.

Yeah, it's junk. It's basically error messages for various drivers that won't work/install, haven't been updated for Win2k, etc.

If you have a system where you know you don't have any driver errors, I don't think there will be any problems deleting COMPDATA. This might be why COMPDATA is useful in Recovery Console (which I don't use either) as it's looking for the error messages.

@FDV, I agree with you, it's not necessary to modify your fileset to remove languages, especially if people around the world are using it to rip out IE on all their computers

Also, Oleg's solution of just deleting out the languages you don't need from SOURCESS is just too easy.

Re the .inf file to add back stuff, would it be possible to make one master .inf file to add things back? Then you could create a fileset where basically everything was taken out (.chm files, OS2 subsystem, etc.) and then all people would have to do is go through the one master .inf file to add things back.

RE POSIX and OS/2

Even if you take out the above files, I think the registry still gets littered with POSIX and OS/2 keys. I say "I think" because I noticed POSIX registry keys on my HFSLIP FDV Win2k VM even though POSIX was taken out.

Here are the POSIX and OS/2 registry keys:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\OS/2 Subsystem for NT] Delete all keys & subkeys

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment] Delete the Os2LibPath entry

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\SubSystems] Delete the Optional, OS2 & Posix entries

Not sure if there's a way to get rid of these from FDV filesets, but they're not too hard to remove after installation. Also, because the files they refer to no longer exist, they're probably orphaned and a decent registry cleaner should get rid of them.

[Oleg_II]

saugatak

I don't thing you have get any error messages even if your drivers don't work or install if you specify in your winnt.sif:

[Unattended]
   DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore

The wrong drivers just won't install. So you can delete COMPDATA in any situation.

As for Recovery Console it was one of the other folders WIN9XMIG, WIN9XUPG or WINNTUPG that was mentioned. Probably the last one. But I'm not sure. Anyway if you use winnt.sif you probably just don't have a choice to install Recovery Console (I may be wrong?).

[saugatak]

@FDV, not meant to criticize your fileset because it's fantastic, especially with regard to the main culprit, IE. The rest are just cleanup. I find your story of the Italian company that gladly used your fileset to rip out IE funny.

I'd bet that with IE7 coming on but not being available for Win2k, and M$ history of providing security patches on older systems ranging from late to never, there has to be tons of CIOs/CTOs Win2k thinking . . . "We gotta get rid of IE6 because after IE7, M$ will never update it."

I agree that 2 filesets are crazy. My idea was, get rid of everything and then have an optional install INF, if that's possible. It doesn't have to be limited to the above mentioned programs.

I just don't know if the "Master Install INF" idea s doable because I don't know the dependencies on the INFs like you do.

I'm surprised anyone still uses the OS/2 subsystem, but I probably shouldn't be as the people who use your fileset are probably doing all sorts of stuff that your standard user would not touch.

Let us know how you and Oleg are doing on the .chm removal project and if I can help in any way.

Edited October 10, 2005 by saugatak

[tommyp]

@Oleg - That batch file mods the mdac.inf file too. It's automated.

Here's that site I based that mdac removal stuff. http://jdeboeck.msfnhosting.com/

His batch files are for XP, but most of the 2k file names are unchanged. Try giving it a try and test with VM. Report if you find something good. FWIW, FDV's fileset is pretty **** lean. I like it, but I'm hopelessly hooked to IE6 w/maxthon. I tried firefox and mozilla, but I can't get the favorites/bookmarks to stay resident on my d partition when I reinstall.

[Oleg_II]

tommyp

We have messed up in you "Codecs" thread. Could you move our last few messages in this thread?

As for FireFox. It saves all favorits only in one HTML file easy to handle and you can do the following:

1. Install Firefox without plugins and arrage all it's settings according to your liking.

2. Type in address bar about:config , find and chage accordingly (if there is no key - create it):

browser.bookmarks.file string D:\Docs\Safe\bookmarks.html

Your bookmark.html with all your favorits will be saved in D:\Docs\Safe (the path is up to you).

3. Creat somewhere FFProfile folder (or call it how you like) and place two files in it: localstore.rdf and prefs.js (in your case only the second file is important and you can even rename it into user.js for sure, the first one is for View preferences and you can omit it). Create a SFX archive from FFProfile folder that will place it say in %programs%\"Mozilla Firefox" during unattended.

4. Find and open profiles.ini from in %UserProfile%\Oleg 2\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox and edit:

[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=Oleg2
IsRelative=0
Path=C:\Appz\Mozilla Firefox\FFProfile
Default=1

I also place profiles.ini in SFX archive that extracts in %UserProfile%\Default User\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox replacing other file (in fact I have only one SFX that do all the jobs like this for FireFox, Thunderbird, Open Office and a few more programs).

5. Before running FireFox first time make sure you place your bookmark.html in the folder specified.

You are done!

Unfortunatelly you can't just specify your favorites in winnt.sif, you have to save one file with favorits somewhere on you disk but one HTML file is easy to save and you can take it on any computer even without FireFox and use it as a link page to reach your favorits

Edited October 12, 2005 by Oleg_II

[fdv]

I think the registry still gets littered with POSIX and OS/2 keys

saugatak, open up my IE.IN_ and search for "OS2 Subsystem"

uncomment these values, save the file. as strongbad says, "DELETED!!"

note: i'll add the POSIX stuff.

in fact, if you guys give me registry info (INF format please, but if it has to be REG format, that's okay) then i will add it to this file.

[saugatak]

@FDV, IE.IN_ is a prodigious amount of work.

Couple of comments. In your original IE.IN_, you refer to "HKLM,SYSTEM\ControlSet002" registry keys and subkeys.

For some weird reason, there are ""HKLM,SYSTEM\ControlSet001" and "HKLM,SYSTEM\ControlSet003" keys and subkeys, but no "ControlSet002" keys and subkeys in my Windows registry, both on this XP machine and on my VM HFSLIP FDV Win2k.

I have no idea why the registry skips from "ControlSet001" to "ControlSet003" but that seems to be the case

I think a search and replace of "ControlSet002" to "ControlSet003" will do the trick.

With that said, below are the keys I found which should be "uncommented" to get rid of OS2 and POSIX:

; POSIX Subsystem

;

HKLM,"SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager\Subsystems","Optional"

HKLM,"SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager\Subsystems","Posix"

HKLM,"SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Control\Session Manager\Subsystems","Optional"

HKLM,"SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Control\Session Manager\Subsystems","Posix"

HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Subsystems","Optional"

HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Subsystems","Posix"

;

; OS2 Subsystem

;

HKLM,"SOFTWARE\Microsoft\""OS/2 Subsystem for NT""

HKLM,"SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager\Environment","Os2LibPath"

HKLM,"SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager\SubSystems","Os2"

HKLM,"SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Control\Session Manager\Environment","Os2LibPath"

HKLM,"SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Control\Session Manager\SubSystems","Os2"

HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment","Os2LibPath"

HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\SubSystems","Os2"

Note: OS2 keys from FDV with "ControlSet002" replaced with "ControlSet003"