[fdv]

Quote

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

Quote

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).

This post has been edited by fdv: 10 October 2005 - 02:51 PM

[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
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

This post has been edited by Oleg_II: 10 October 2005 - 03:39 PM

[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.

This post has been edited by saugatak: 10 October 2005 - 05:30 PM

[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

This post has been edited by Oleg_II: 11 October 2005 - 08:48 PM

[fdv]

Quote

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"

[tommyp]

@Oleg - Thanks for the FF tips. I'll test them out tonite. Also, I de-cluttered the codec thread.

[Crash&Burn]

Removed Help Files:

The only problem I had, after assuring myself that I didn't need them...(google is your friend)...
Was when I started using some command-line tools I wasn't familiar with, only to realize, that their help wasn't internalized like old DOS commands, they actually had .hlp .cnt files.

[Oleg_II]

Crash&Burn
I agree with you that Help files sometimes are usefull. But to tell the truth I used them very-very raraly And I want to remove them on a system that uses fdv's set of files where you even can't open CHM and HLP files (well, you can if you run one INF from the disk, but Help Sysem will still be broken anyway).

PS I still save a couple of CHM files with command refference and shortcuts somewhere in my Docs

[Crash&Burn]

Well I did some testing to see what Help accesses when an installed App's helpfile is opened:
Help on FileMon, WINNT files accessed:

Quote

C:\WINNT\winhlp32.exe
C:\WINNT\system32\shim.dll
C:\WINNT\system32\sysmain.sdb
C:\WINNT\AppPatch\AcSpecfc.dll
C:\WINNT\AppPatch\AcLayers.dll
C:\WINNT\system32\MSVCP60.dll
C:\WINNT\system32\PSAPI.DLL

I think it would be worthwhile keeping support for opening help files, if its not difficult
One could even move all the files, that get removed when purging IE, to another path
like %systemroot%\HELPFILES and add that to the %PATH%
Well just my .02

PS. And if not, how would one do that, just add $0EM$/$$/HELPFILES/
Like how $OEM$/$$/SYSTEM32 is used?

Attached is a test for, FileMon, IrfanView: both use winhlp32.exe, and Kerio PF, Lockergnome tips: which use hh.exe
An interesting note, the hh.exe will check for the existence of the directories:
---> D:\Programs\Internet Explorer\Connection Wizard
---> D:\Programs\Internet Explorer\
but doesn't access any files within.

This post has been edited by Crash&Burn: 12 October 2005 - 05:26 PM

[Oleg_II]

Crash&Burn
You can unable Help files openning by running winhtml.inf from disk after installation. Then you can open CHM and HLP files. But some of the funcions will be broken.
I install this functionality by default Slitely modified winhtml.inf and made it run during unattended

And we would like to remove Help files only for those who want it (you will have the option and may not remove if you don't want it

I'm playing around with the CMD file tommyp introduced me. It removes all CHM, CNT and HLP files from the source, modifies txtsetup.sif and dosnet.inf. I wonder should I add modifying LAYOUT.inf as it works even if modifying only txtsetup.sif.
And there are some difficulties with some files - some other INFs are calling for them so I also need for modifying them with the batch.

[tommyp]

Shhhhh. FDV+HFSLIP+NLITE works. Just don't remove IE when running Nlite. .....Shhhhh.

[Crash&Burn]

Hehehe and next we'll see, HFNSlipLite

[Oleg_II]

All
Amazing! This is just Amazing!

Just tried HFSLIP+FDV+NLITE and this is amazing! Windows 2000 Pro with SP4, latest hotfixes, DirectX 9C, configured and tweaked and All my programs and important documents are on 250MB disk only (!) installing just in 15 minutes!

I have only half of a an hour to look throgh my appz but all seems working without issues. Will experiment more

But I should say that I'm going to try removing as much files as possible with only CMD method nLite is a GREAT program but you have to learn it and it needs .NET and installing. And I'm lazy ®

tommyp
Have you tried my CHM-HLP removal file? It removes from the resulting source some more MBs (about 5 megs will be free additionally).

This post has been edited by Oleg_II: 15 October 2005 - 08:04 PM

[Crash&Burn]

@ Oleg II
NLite can run w/o .Net, he hosts alternate runtimes on his site. If you don't want to install .Net, you fetch those, has some dll's I believe.

[tain]

@saugatak: How about removing the actual files along with the shortcuts?

Quote

[StartMenuGroups];Accessibility = %accessibility%,0

[Accessibility]
;%magnifier% = magnify.exe,magnify.exe,,0,%magnifier_infotip%
;%reader% = narrator.exe,narrator.exe,,0,%reader_infotip%
;%screenkeyboard% = osk.exe,osk.exe,,0,%screenkeyboard_infotip%
;%utilman% = utilman.exe,"utilman.exe /start",,0,%utilman_infotip%