How to strip Windows XP Pro right back for speed?

Nine_Lives

I remember doing this once before following online guides - i ended up removing stuff i didn't have a clue about & WinXP, yes you guessed it, stopped working.

Anyway, i've got WinXP Pro running in VMWare Player. The sole purpose of this is to run car diagnostic software. No document writing, no internet browsing. No nothing other than installing the diagnostic software & running them (I'll need USB capability).

For anyone who has a clue about these things, i'll be installing OP-COM & VAG-COM. I've had OP-COM working before, but having a bit of bother with VAG-COM in Windows 7.

So anything that i don't need, which i imagine will be most things, that is likely to slow the VM down, i'd like to remove if possible.

I just don't know what to remove.

Toxteth_OGrady

http://www.theorica.net/gamexp.htm

photodgm

http://www.blackviper.com

Has worked well for me in the past.

S0litaire

take a look at this :
http://www.litepc.com/xplite.html

I've used it years ago and got XP running in a VERY small footprint (500Mb on a 2Gb drive for an ancient laptop)

-TangleFoot-

nLite?

GunJack

another vote for blackviper - have xp pro running 16 processes at idle, 120meg commit charge including av and firewall, and that's not even the power tweak

Kernel_Sanders

GunJack wrote: »

another vote for blackviper - have xp pro running 16 processes at idle, 120meg commit charge including av and firewall, and that's not even the power tweak

I've just spent over ten minutes on that site. Found out the author's hair colour, read some random posts requesting help etc. but have no idea where or what on that site you a recommending we use. I mean, on http://www.blackviper.com/sitemap/ under FAQ Page : Common questions and answers concerning Windows XP. leads to advice on other OSs.

Toxteth_OGrady

Kernel_Sanders wrote: »

I've just spent over ten minutes on that site. Found out the author's hair colour, read some random posts requesting help etc. but have no idea where or what on that site you a recommending we use. I mean, on http://www.blackviper.com/sitemap/ under FAQ Page : Common questions and answers concerning Windows XP. leads to advice on other OSs.

Usually the list of services that may be disabled:

http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-xp-x86-32-bit-service-pack-3-service-configurations/

Also:

http://www.blackviper.com/2002/04/17/black-vipers-windows-xp-super-tweaks/

GunJack

Hanx Tox, saved me doing the linky

Nine_Lives

Thanks

Have used nLite in the past to pull out portions of XP & add in bits (the add on packs from their forums). It didn't go very well (the taking out part).

I'm sure it was BlackViper i used which also didn't work for me (broke XP). The name rings a bell but the layout looks different. I'm sure the webpage was all black & perhaps the text green or something, but i'm trying to remember back a good number of years now.

Toxteth_OGrady

Nine_Lives wrote: »

I'm sure the webpage was all black & perhaps the text green or something, but i'm trying to remember back a good number of years now.

It was:

http://web.archive.org/web/20110126222340/http://www.blackviper.com/

...archive takes about 20 secs to load