stripping down windows

[Teus]

I'm modding a case so I can fit a P3 733 in it. is it actually possible to strip down windows xp like you can do with linux?

the purpose of this would be to reduce the disk usage and speed up winxp by not loading crap I don't need. the rig will be a dualboot with linux and will only be used to play movies/mp3's, MSN and Internet explorer.

emerging it like Linux isn't possible cuz it isn't open-source, but aren't there any other ways?

[Tweaked!]

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1684

Read this entire thread, there's a lot of good helpful tips, especially at the bottom about configuring windows to not run run a boat load of apps.

[Karnivore]

If you actually want to strip out windows components and don't have the time and or knowledge try XPlite (http://www.litepc.com/xplite.html) also works for Win 2kp and 98 version as well..... this is payware but does offer a free trial...

[Teus]

thanks folks. what tweaks actually give te biggest performance boosts? I do want to spend some time disabling crap I don't need anyway, but I don't want to spend hours on it.

Is there a way to save my services settings so I can save my configuration, and disable the services I've selected before with only a few clicks

XPLite isn't bad, but I don't think it will make a big difference.

I'm actually looking for some major cut-downs instead of some smaller tweaks ;)


MOD: quick 'n dirty stuff like
"Windows XP Services

Here is a way to figure out which services to set as Automatic and which to set as manual or disabled.

Step1: Set ALL your services to *manual* setting.
Step2: Reboot computer and wait for windows XP to load. XP will boot pretty slowly, since it has to turn on each service
separately. Use your computer for a bit, doing what you normally do during a computing session. This will allow any
other services to activate (such as DHCP or other services that didn't load during the boot process).
Step3: Go back to the list of services, and see which ones are Started. Change the services that are marked as Started, to
*Automatic*. This way windows will automatically load all of the services that you normally use, and the ones that
you don't use will stay unloaded. "
:thumbsup:

[STeel Chicken]

You can write software that will start and stop services fairly easily, assuming you can do basic programming...check some of the places like tucows, or sourceforge, someone may have already done something like that.