[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 <><

This post has been edited by PMikeP: 20 March 2010 - 11:45 PM

[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~)

This post has been edited by keirkei: 21 March 2010 - 10:45 AM

[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).

This post has been edited by fdv: 23 March 2010 - 12:21 PM