See also: Related discussion thread
Note from torowl: I have used nLite slim down XP and installed in my EEE. I’m posting the step by step instructions here to share my experience. After installation, XP take about 687M SSD, this is the best result I can get so far. And this includes hotfixes and few addon softwares includes Windows Media Player 10. I also installed Office 2003 and Divx, didn’t get any issue, so far so good.
I’m not an XP expert. All options that removed are based on my limited knowledge. Some options removal may be wrong. You are welcome to point out for discussion.
1. Download nLite from http://www.nliteos.com/download.html. I’m using version 1.4.
2. Download hotfixes: SP3 hot fix is available now. Use either SP2 or SP3 hotfix.
3. Also you can find a lot of addons from http://www.nliteos.com/addons. For more addons, you can find them from here http://www.winaddons.com.
4. Install nLite.
5. Create a folder and copy the XP installation files (everything) from CD to that folder.
6. Run nLite, in the welcome window, click Next to Locating the Windows installation window. Click the “Browse” button to locate the folder that you created. Click “Next” and nLite will check your Windows version information.
nLite browse dialog containes a browse button. Read only text of Windows operating system version name, Language, Service Pack version, windows version number, path to the files and size. All dialogs contain a back button, next button and cancel button. They also contain a Tray button, where you can drop the program to the system tray to retrieve later.
7. Click “Next” to Preset window. In the first run, you don’t have any preset ini files. It will show empty here. Click Next.
nLite presets dialog contains a list box of possible presets and their dates which is empty , and an import button.
8. In the Task Selection window, select all except Service Pack and Drivers. Because we don’t have any service pack that is newer than SP2. If you select driver, nLite can embed the drivers into XP installation. I think it is not a good idea to add Eee drivers into XP installation, because we need to run ACPI before install Eee drivers.
nLite task selection dialog shows a series of buttons which are grouped by a set of labels to their left. All buttons are pressed except for service packs and drivers.
9. Click “Next” to Hotfixes, Addons and Update Packs window. Click “insert” to insert hotfixes and addons. I didn’t add Adobe Acrobat Reader, Windows Live Messenger and Divx addons, somehow these don’t work well for me.
nlite Hotfixes, Addons and Updates contains a list of patches to be applied, with column headers of Name, Description, Language, Build Date, Size and Mor Info. More info column contains URLs.
10. Click “Next” to Components window, and also in the popup Compatibility window. This is just to avoid you accidentally removing important components for selected function. You don’t need to select anything and click OK.
nLite compatibility dialog contains a series of checkboxes. None of them are selected.
11. In the Components window, you can select the listed items that you feel you won’t need on your Eee.
nLite components dialog contains a tree view of items with check boxes next to them. All 10 items are not checked.
Here were my selections:
I think Defragmenter is no use for 4G SSD, but I keep Defragmenter anyway, no biggee.
nLite components dialog Applications tree. All items are selected except Calcuator, Charmap, Defragmenter and Paint. Therefore these are the items that will be kept.
Select “All” to be removed because we have the Eee driver CD.
nLite components dialog drivers tree. All items are selected for removal.
nLite components dialog hardware support tree. Items that aren't selected for removal are AGP filters, Battery, CPU Intel, Intel PCI IDE controllers, Logical Disk Manager, Microsoft colour Management (ICM), Ports (COM and LPT), Printer Support, Secure Digital Host Controller, Teletext codec, USB Audio Support, USB Ethernet, USB video capture devices, video capture and Windows Image Acquisition.
If you need IME, you need to keep the keyboard that you need. Select all to remove except what you need.
nLite components dialog keyboard tree.
Select all to remove except the language that you need. (In my case, I keep Simplified Chinese).
nLite components dialog language tree.
nLite components dialog multimedia tree. Items selected for removal are AOL Art Image Support, DirectX Diagnostic Tool, Images and Backgrounds, Intel Indeo Codecs, Mouse Cursors, Movie Maker, Music Samples, Old CDPlayer and Sound Recorder, Tablet PC.
I kept Windows Messenger because Live Messenger has annoying ad bars that are not good for the Eee's 800×480 resolution.
nLite components dialog network tree. Items selected for removal are Client for Netware Networks, Communication Tools, Control Test Terminal Program, Connection Manager, Frontpage Extension, Internet Information Services, MSN Explorer, Netshell Cmd-Tool, Network Monitor Driver and Tool, NWLink IPX/SPX/NetBIOS protocol, Peer to Peer, Synchronisation Manager, Vector Graphics Rendering (VML), Web Folders.
nLite components dialog Operating System Options tree. Items not selected for removal are Color Schemes, Disk Cleanup, Extra Fonts, File System Filter Manager, Format Drive Support, Group Policy Management Controller, Help Engine, Input Method Editor, Internet Explorer Core, Jet Database Engine, Local Security Settings, Login Notification, MDAC, Out of Box Experience (OOBE)Shell Media Handler, User account pictures, Visual Basic 5 runtime, Visual Basic 6 runtime, Visual Basic Scripting Support, Zip Folders
Do not check Manual Install and Upgrade, if you want to install XP from USB pendrive according to http://www.eeeguides.com/2007/11/installing-windows-xp-from-usb-thumb.html. This cannot be emphasized enough. If you have trouble installing using a USB flash drive, check this setting first!
nLite components dialog Servicess options tree. items not selected for removal are Background Intelleigent Transfer Service, DHCP Client, DNS Client, Event Log, HTTP SSL, Keberos Key Distribution Center, Network Location Awareness (NLA), Network Privisioning, Protected Storage, Shell Services, System Event Notification (SENS), System Monitor, Text Services Framework, Universal Plug and Play Device Host, Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS), Windows Management Instrumentation, Windows Time, Wireless Configuration.
nLite components dialog Directories tree; all items are selected for removal.
12. Click Next to Unattended window. In the General tag, input your XP serial number and it will not ask for it later during installation. Also, check “Turn off Hibernate”.
nLite unattended windows dialog gemeral tab A dialog with combo boxes and check boxes. most options are set to their defaults. Turn off Hibernate is checked.
nLite unattended window dialog users tab contains controls for adding users, setting passwords, setting automatic login counts, password expirey etc.
nLite unattended window dialog Owner and Network ID tab has edit boxes to set computer name, workgroup name, full name and organisation.
nLite unattended window dialog regional tab contains controls to set language, location, keyboard and time zone.
nLite unattended window dialog desktop theme tab. Sets the default desktop theme. Windows classic will allow for better performance and will give the classic windows start menu.
nLite unattended window dialog display tab. set colour depth, screen resolution and refresh rate. Defaults are used.
For the other tabs, you can leave them as they are.
13. Click “Next” to Options window. In the General tab, you don’t need change anything.
nLite options window general tab. a list of options and values beside each option in a combo box.
In the Patches tab, choose Disable SFC.
nLite options window patches tab. Lists Three different options with descriptions and a disable button for each.
14. Click Next to bring up the Tweaks window.
nLite tweaks window has two tabs; general and services. the general tab has a tree view of 13 items with checkboxes next to them.
Here are my settings in General tab:
nLite tweaks window boot up options tree. Each item in this tree has a sub tree with disable and enable radio buttons. To select an item for deletion, the disable button must be activated. Options selected for disabling are control alt del at logon, Do not parse autoexec.bat, and numlock.
nLite tweaks window Desktop options. Each item has a sub tree of radio buttons. Items selected are: desktop icon size is set to 32, internet explore icon is set to show, my computer icon is set to show, my documents icon is set to show, my network places icon is set to hide, recycle bin button is set to show.
nLite tweaks window explorer options. A lot of these are user preference, especially for users of screenreaders. Options checked in the graphic are Classic Control Panel, Disable Prefix Shortcut to, Remove Send To on context menu, Show Drive Letters in front of Drive Names, Show estensions of known file types, Show Map Network Drives buttons in Explorer Bar, use small icons in explorer bar.
nLite tweaks window Internet Explorer tree. Items checked for inclusion are Disable download complete notification, Disable Market Place Bookmarks, Disable Media Player 6.4 created bookmarks, Disable Password Caching, Enable Google Url/Search
nLite tweaks window My Computer and Network tree. Once again user preference. The only item selected here is Remove shared documents
nLite tweak window performance tree. Most items are checked. items that aren't checked are Process scheduling and Use Windows classic folders/No Task Sidepanel.
nLite tweaks window privacy tree the only option checked is Remove Alexa.
nLite tweaks window start menu tree. options selected are: clear most recently opened documents list on logoff, disable and remove Documents list from the Start Menu, Disable Drag and Drop, Disable Highlight newly installed programs, Disable popup on first boot, Hide Run button. My network Places has a radio button subtree set to Don't display this item. Printers and faxes has a radio button sub tree set to don't display this item. Other items selected are Remove Logoff User, Remove Search For People from Search, Remove Search the Internet from Search, remove Set Program Access and Defaults, Remove Windows Catalog shortcut, Remove Windows Update Shortcut, use small icons on Start menu.
nLite tweaks window taskbar tree. The only item selected is Hide Volume Control Icon in System Tray.
nLite tweaks window Visual Effects tree. No items are selected.
nLite tweaks window Windows Media Player tree. Items not selected are disable all streaming protocols, do not show anchor in Designmode, No virtualisation, Remove all context menu entries, Zoom video to windowsize.
(I didn’t change anything in Services)
nLite tweaks window services tab. The second tab of the tweaks window. a lisst of services and their status, all of which on this screen are set to default.
15. Click “Next” and nLite will process changes base on your previous choices.
nLite processing window. The processes it will undertake are listed, the current one is bolded and the rest are greyed out. Underneath this is a progress bar. Underneath that is text of what is being done, in this case extracting cabs. The next button is greyed out and the Cancel and Tray buttons are available.
It will take a while. After it is done, it shows the new installation files size.
nLite processing screen when done. The same screen as previous but the list of processes is all greyed out and the status bar is gone. The text now reads “Finished! Total size is 189.53MB. The installation was reduced by 429.33MB.” The next button is now available.
16. Click “Next” to Bootable ISO window. Click “Make ISO” button to generate a new ISO file.
nLite bootable ISO window. Contains options for creating an ISO/burning a disc. options include Mode combo box, label edit field, ISO Engine combo box, Boot sectore combo box. There is an Empty progress bar and Make ISO button. Information text reads “If you want to include additional files on your CD/DVD, copy them to the working directory before starting, or just click next if you want to make the ISO later”.
17. Use Nero or some other tool to burn ISO file, and then you are ready to install Windows XP for Eee.
