Lean, mean machine?

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plazma

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Please can someone advise me on how to achieve this:

I sometimes need my pc to be a normal desktop machine which can surf the net, and do e-mail, and all the normal stuff, using XP. This is how my pc is configured now.

However, I also need to use it as a digital audio workstation, for which I would like to have a stripped-down installation of XP, no internet, email or networking capabilities. All the unnecessary junk can disappear.

If I am contemplating having a partition with a stripped down XP installation, into which I can boot separately, am I on the right track, or is there a better way to get the same result, like maybe with a virtual machine?
Ta
 
Why do you want to strip it down?

Edit: What do you want to remove?
 
I would like to remove Outlook, Messenger, the the scanner and camera wizards, most of the stuff in the Accessories menu, and anything else that would not be 'mission-critical'. Even the calculator. :)
 
Why? If you just want to change the look/feel of the OS then just create a new user and modify the profile, start menu etc. Then just log in with the correct profile....
 
I don't want to change the look or the feel of the OS. I want to make it use as little system resources as possible, and I don't want to install things I won't be using, like the examples I've mentioned.
 
OK, I see.

The best way to do it would probably be to create the "performance" OS on a physical partition with a minimal OS install. Then install VMWare and create the "Work" OS with all the apps etc. When you need dedicated resources simply pause the VM. If you do it the other way, the "performance" OS on the VM then it may just be slower, since the resource will be consumed....

Not sure what the benefit is though of disabling extra services etc? You could probably save 100MB RAM or so and a bit of disk space but it should not change performance significantly.

Perhaps try run Autoruns from Sysinternals; you will probably be surprised at how many unnecessary applications are set to run at startup!!
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx
 
what you want to do is exactly what i did, seperate partitions with seperate installations of windows, each with its own primary purpose, but some people on this forum fail to see the practicality of it all.
 
IMO gone are the days of disabling all the services from a "standard installation" to gain noticeable performance.

Also I think that you might be missing the point, if something isn't showing in your taskmanager then it isn't consuming resources (apart from hdd space). So by not opening Outlook is basically the same as not having it installed (if that makes any sense)....

Obviously disabling hungry applications will give you a benefit, I do this from SQL Server 2005 when I'm not developing on it.

Check this out anyway I think it's what you're after...
http://www.w-tweaks.com/html/xp-disable-services.html
 
Lord Fubar said:
what you want to do is exactly what i did, seperate partitions with seperate installations of windows, each with its own primary purpose, but some people on this forum fail to see the practicality of it all.
Click to expand...

Exactly! ;)
 
hey, i do pro audio work all day on a normal xp installation with a few tweaks.. no problems at all - unless the internet is a distraction for you?

what are the specs of your machine?

when it comes to this kind of work, a good soundcard is way more important then stripped down xp installations.
 
assagai said:
hey, i do pro audio work all day on a normal xp installation with a few tweaks.. no problems at all - unless the internet is a distraction for you?

what are the specs of your machine?

when it comes to this kind of work, a good soundcard is way more important then stripped down xp installations.
Click to expand...

I know about the pro audio tweaks for an XP machine, and have done them all.

My "soundcard" (haha) is a Focusrite Saffire PRO 10 i/o 20-channel Firewire interface, with a Liquid Channel channel strip. Do you think this is good enough?
:D
 
Last edited:
plazma said:
I know about the pro audio tweaks for an XP machine, and have done them all.

My "soundcard" (haha) is a Focusrite Saffire PRO 10 i/o 20-channel Firewire interface, with a Liquid Channel channel strip. Do think this is good enough?
:D
Click to expand...

well are you struggling with performance? i guess you are if you want to remove all the fun bits from xp....

the focusrite is ok but you want something to carry some of the dsp load - makes life a lot easier! (think uad or rme)
 
Haha, you obviously have no clue what this Focusrite stuff is. Google would help.
I have no performance issues, I just want to get the max out of my pc, and want to do away with all the frills and distractions.
 
plazma said:
I would like to remove Outlook, Messenger, the the scanner and camera wizards, most of the stuff in the Accessories menu, and anything else that would not be 'mission-critical'. Even the calculator. :)
Click to expand...

Sound like you need nLite. http://www.nliteos.com/
There is also vLite for Vista users.

With nLite you remaster the original installation cd & slipstream SP3 into as well.

You can remove so much stuff to your hearts content. I remastered My installation CD down to under 250MB. I removed all the printer drivers, all the languages except english, all the network protocols except TCP/IP & Netbios, Unneeded network drivers. Then I removed apps like notepad, windows media player, outlook express, defragger and a boat load of other crap. The stuff I removed I either did not need or there were better open source or freeware equivalents.
 
plazma said:
Thanks, Conrad. Any advice on how to achieve the ultimate no-frills OS?
Click to expand...

Do a normal installation to a new partition. Install what you need to, dont worry about AV and all that crap, the other partition can scan the disk when you use it.

Then go to Services > Set all services startup to manual (some you wont be able to change from automatic). Reboot. Back to services set all the Manual services that are NOT running to disabled (the other services were explicitly started and are therefore required).

Go to HKEY Local Machine > software > Microsoft > Windows NT > currentVersion > Winlogon. Change the shell key to C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe. Now when you boot you get your background and a DOS window.

Finally download Autoruns, previous thread, run the GUI version and disable everything that you feel comfortable disabling.

Reboot, when you logon again you should have a DOS window that you can use to launch apps from - no start menu etc. You may also have a brick.... (in which case just start in safe mode and try again :) )

Using this we are able to run windows 2003, via Citrix, on a client with 32 (or 64, one of the two) megs of RAM.....

Edit: The above will give you the lightest Windows (in terms of resources) - nLite is real good for minimizing the total install size.....
 
Last edited:
plazma said:
Haha, you obviously have no clue what this Focusrite stuff is. Google would help.
I have no performance issues, I just want to get the max out of my pc, and want to do away with all the frills and distractions.
Click to expand...

ok you're right - thought it didn't have onboard dsp - i've seen older focusrite solutions that didn't have the dsp. let us know if you have any significant performance increase, i'd be curious. my rig with the regular xp installation and an rme multiface 2 gives me 0.7ms latency on audio instruments, lower then a guitar cable - but i do get errr... distracted sometimes.
 
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