A Melbourne-based software outfit has come up with a tool for getting rid of the bloat on Windows systems and literally cutting one’s system down to size. LitePC has developed software which it markets as XPLite and 2000lite, which users can use to remove practically any component of Windows.
Cutting Windows down to size
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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that this was impossible since everything was so intergrated? did bill lie to me?
perhaps for longhorn there will be part of the installer that will ask you if you want a default (everything installed) or advanced so you can remove ie, msn, etc.
Thank you both for your stunning insight into the mind of a zealot. I look forward to your future comments, and insightful ideas.
About 80% of the stuff they list that their product removes (http://www.litepc.com/xplite.html) can be done manually anyway. I guess their advantage is that last 20% and being able to undo changes easily.
I think someone must have changed the Matrix…
I remember using 98Lite within the first couple of months of Windows 98 being released in Oz. It was fantastic – swapping explorer for the Win95 version (and later hacking it to say “Win 98” in the task bar)
It certainly made a helluva difference on older hardware – in some cases going from unusable to usable.
I even recall one of the judges in the MS Anti-trust case referring to 98Lite as proof that Internet Explorer was removable, contrary to MS’s claims.
XPLite & 2KLite was released a few months ago, too, IIRC. It was even reviewed on this site.
Has anything changed?
This news is so old it is growing mold…… The program doesn’t really do much you can’t do manually, given you know what you are doing.
It would be a great way for Joe Homeowner to turn a nice running system into mush in a matter of seconds.
nice running system..?
Microsoft NEVER said that it is impossible to remove it from the OS. They said that to remove it would create incompatibilities with certain software and make other features not work.
Which, by the way, is VERY true.
You make this sound like every running Windows system in the world runs poorly……
Couldn’t be farther from the truth… Most well configured systems work VERY WELL, create few problems for the user, and generally do what the user needs.
I’m not going to begin another worthless “mines better than yours” thread, thats not the point.
Windows IS a huge portion of the market… Get over it, pray for a miracle, or adapt.
I like that I can finally mount the “My Programs” folder on another partition because I can empty it of essential files that Windows won’t let me delete, meeting the empty directory requirement. I’ve always organized my system with Windows by itself and other programs elsewhere. This just makes it more convenient.
I successfully removed mutch shit from customer’s Windows XP PCs… Internet Eplorer for 1st. Replaced by Firebird. All works correctly. Awesome.
open same web page http://www.google.com
On my XP box, IE uses 13 MB, Opera 7.11 uses 15 MB and Mozilla 1.5 uses 18 MB.
They ask users pay to screw their systems.
Sarcastically: Yes, not bad considering all of its components are built into the OS.
What is that 13MB even used for?
I’m more impressed by Opera and Mozilla, particularly at how Mozilla has shrunk over time.
Soo… First pay $150-200 for XP and then remove almost everything.
Makes real sense 🙂
If IE gets corrupted I think with this program it would be easy to remove IE and then put it back like a fresh install.
For the people who say most of these things can be done manually, show me proof! I know how to remove MSN Messenger what about the rest.
On my XP box, IE uses 13 MB, Opera 7.11 uses 15 MB and Mozilla 1.5 uses 18 MB.
What will it happened if IE has the same feature as Opera and Mozilla? 😛 Seriously, Opera has awful a lot of features than other browsers. Yet, it’s still small and fast.
When you buy Windows, you’re really not buying windows, you’re buying the ability to use applications, people want this to be as seamless as possible.
…sounds interesting?
Here are instructions:
http://jdeboeck.msfnhosting.com/
Btw… does anyone remember my Nano98 – Win98 under 5mb http://www.etek.chalmers.se/~e8gus/nano98
I’ve been using XPLite for a while and it DOES remove everything you want to remove, except IE. It does the same thing for IE as you would be able to do by simply removing the shortcuts. What however sucks about the program is that if you remove components, your Windows Update will suddenly not work properly anymore if you intend to use it. It’ll keep finding the same updates over and over because they’ll never be applied properly.
this is great thing … Free WindowsXP PE …
Bart’s PE Builder: http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
“It does the same thing for IE as you would be able to do by simply removing the shortcuts.”
If that is all it does to IE, then around 95% of the stuff it removes you can remove manually with alot of that being removable from the control panel.
Who would want to remove TCP/IP command liune tools? They don’t take up much room. Whay would you want to remove the update services? Microsoft is going to do away with patch executables for the sake of consistency. You are going to have to have the update service in order tom patch your machine, unless you want to wait for service packs.
I agree with the person who said this is just a way for people to screw up thier machines. This is why I avoid touching anyomnes home PC outside of my own home. I am occasionally forced to work on some business owners PC, but I still try to wiggle out of it if possible. Telecommuters PC’s are provided by the company’s so I just wipe and reinstall when they get screwed up.
“On my XP box, IE uses 13 MB, Opera 7.11 uses 15 MB and Mozilla 1.5 uses 18 MB.
They ask users pay to screw their systems.”
IE is just a web browser. Both Opera and Mozilla include email clients as well, and beyond that Mozilla also includes an IRC client too. So, when you take it all in IE is still quite bloated. Thats also assuming that much of its functioniality isn’t further embedded, the total size may be even bigger yet. If you wish to compare the size of IE to Moz/Opera also include the size of Outlook Express as well to be truely fair. Considering that all that Moz/Opera do their actually quite small.
So I have to pay $200 for the OS and another $30 per machine to have it run like I want it to? Yea ok, that sounds like a plan. LOL!
If you want to tray this program do this…
Disable internet explorer and later try to open a link from MSN messenger your deafault browser doesn’t come anyway i can live with that. so disable internet explorer with xplite, open a windows explorer window and write an internet address in the address bar and you continue navigating….
bullshit is this software..
are less the 98 edition works very fine, but this??, hummm no
With all the removal of the extra fluff one has to wonder how much faster Windows ends up. Always willing to tweak that little bit extra out of old hardware
Rus
On my XP box, IE uses 13 MB, Opera 7.11 uses 15 MB and Mozilla 1.5 uses 18 MB.
What will it happened if IE has the same feature as Opera and Mozilla? 😛 Seriously, Opera has awful a lot of features than other browsers. Yet, it’s still small and fast
Like not being able to enter some sites ? or frequent chokes on DNS lookup ? or telling its users it crashed on line 123 ?
“On my XP box, IE uses 13 MB, Opera 7.11 uses 15 MB and Mozilla 1.5 uses 18 MB.
They ask users pay to screw their systems.”
IE is just a web browser. Both Opera and Mozilla include email clients as well, …
Those numbers, 13MB/15MB/18MB, are memory foot print with google page open, not file size.
I like his instructions on how to make a boot CD that is slip streamed with the lattest SP.
Please correct me if I am wrong, (since I am wrong so often
) but isn’t the removal of IE against the EULA agreement? I could swear there was a clause against modification….
JM
Those numbers, 13MB/15MB/18MB, are memory foot print with google page open, not file size.
And if you use MyIE2 with 2 pages opened you get even better results with memory.
“Those numbers, 13MB/15MB/18MB, are memory foot print”
In the olden days, it was pretty easy to figure how much
memory a Macintosh application uses. So I compared IE with
Navigator. IE used a fraction of the memory. Then I
noticed the system software was using a lot more memory
than usage. It turns out that IE was “hiding” its memory
usage. (I don’t think they were trying to hide it, they
were simply trying to get around a quirk in the memory
manager.)
The moral of the story: it is easy to hide resource usage.
You used Mozilla which includes email, etc. Try comparing IE to Moz Firebird instead. I think u’ll find firebird is damn lightweight, on my systems it is. I use whatever works at the moment though, some sites demand IE.
And i suppose while a lot of this crap can be done by hand, xp lite (and 98 lite) provides an easy way to do this. It’s pretty cheap anyways. U figure 98 se is $35 and xp is $55, so what’s a few more bucks for an easy way to tinker with it. I use a variety of freeware progz as well to tweak things further.
It is easy to screw things up though. It couldn’t read my 98 se restore cd, cause the cabs are in a different spot. So rather than manually drag them over, i grabbed my iso and installed them. Accidently grabbed 98 rather than 98 se and it screwed things up.
You used Mozilla which includes email, etc. Try comparing IE to Moz Firebird instead. I think u’ll find firebird is damn lightweight, on my systems it is. I use whatever works at the moment though, some sites demand IE.
Firebird’s memory use is similar to Mozilla’s when you’re not using the other portions of Mozilla. Right now Firebird’s sucking up about 20MB on my system with 2 sites open, the only thing using more memory is Visual Studio (which usually uses less, I’m guessing it’s because I have the SDK/help index open). Word is #3 with a little over 9MB in use, and it’s simply loaded as my email editor. One of the other posters was correct, though, in that IE does hide some of it’s memory use in system services. That being said, the system is using those portions of IE for various reasons (though that depends on how you setup your system, too, you can strip out most of the use of IE by the OS).
And i suppose while a lot of this crap can be done by hand, xp lite (and 98 lite) provides an easy way to do this. It’s pretty cheap anyways. U figure 98 se is $35 and xp is $55, so what’s a few more bucks for an easy way to tinker with it. I use a variety of freeware progz as well to tweak things further.
It all really depends on whether or not you trust the software to work well. I would usually do this sort of thing by hand just to have control over it, but then I’m the kind of person that would probably write a program to do it for me if I did it enough times.
It is easy to screw things up though. It couldn’t read my 98 se restore cd, cause the cabs are in a different spot. So rather than manually drag them over, i grabbed my iso and installed them. Accidently grabbed 98 rather than 98 se and it screwed things up.
Naturally, screwing things up is the biggest concern of almost everyone involved in this sort of thing, and is exactly why Microsoft didn’t want to be involved in enabling end-users to do this. I doubt they care that people make software that does it, but they don’t want to be the ones to make that software themselves.
With 80 gigabyte hard drives selling for $40 … who cares if Xp is bloated?
It’s 2004, people. Get a grip.
With 80 gigabyte hard drives selling for $40 … who cares if Xp is bloated?
It’s 2004, people. Get a grip.
You are the kind of person that would say: Optimize, why? Computers are 3GHz now!
Bloating is not only expressed as more storage usage, but more with services/applications running making things slower, by requiring more DLL to be loaded, etc.
Just because there are more resources, it doesn’t mean that you can use all of them, and not in the OS.
For those who like to fine tune their OS, or simply get rid of the bloat to speed up your system, by removing files that are not used. Yes, 80 gig drive are cheap, but if we, as a comsumer put up with the monopoly way of life, we give up the right to have ownership over our own OS, Computer.
Do you really want to give up that right?
There is LitePc, which is good for removing utils that are not used. This is probably the most easiest way to remove intergrated components. but you must also cutting the intallation size before you install.
I have found this website:
( http://jdeboeck.msfnhosting.com/ ) that claims to do the exact same thing. I have not tried it out yet, but It is for Service Pack 1, of WinXp ..
So Visit the site, and reply if nesseary.
In My opinion, I think the file size of most Os’ (Linux, BSD ) included should remove all the bloat from their OS, and have the Options if you want to install specific features..
Have a good one..
— Candian, Iam
“Like not being able to enter some sites ? or frequent chokes on DNS lookup ? or telling its users it crashed on line 123 ?”
What exactly are you talking about? Are you saying that Mozilla has problems? HA! I’ve been using FireBird as my main browser for about two years without a hitch. IE has actually been the one to cause problems (occassional crashing and gotta love all those pop-ups, no tabs, and incorrect PNG support).
What it causes windows update not to work! oh my god, how evil of MS, I can’t belive it doesn’t work. How dare they make something that doesn’t work after you have completely changed your system from how it’s suppose to be. They should change it so you can mess if up royaly and still work fine. /sarcasm
Seriously, If you go and do this, you should expect everything to start breaking. All I can see this do is make a system unstable. There is good reason not to remove IE even if you don’t use it. Lots of stuff does, and expects it to be there. MS was right, you can’t just start yanking stuff out that is expected to be there.
I do wish stuff like MSN and Messanger and outlook could be removed completely, but hey, it’s MS’s OS if they want to build it in fine, for many people that sort of thing is probably a good thing. But as long as I can just get Messanger and the like to never show there faces, I’m content. I see no purpose in trying to reduce the size of windows. Like saving a few hundred meg off a 1.6 gig install is going to change much. My harddrive is 100 times bigger then the windows install, and having a drive 50 times bigger is more common. Trying to reduce the size of windows is about as important as trying to reduce your ram usage to super low levels even though you have tons of ram.
I’m sure lots of people will do this and then come back and say windows XP is crap and unstable and so forth. Why can’t people just install it and let it be without messing with stuff they shouldn’t mess with. If more people were liek that the number of people bitching about windows would shrink a lot. Not that many people in the big picture bitch about windows. Just a small group of people want to make others think everyone hates windows.
One of the other posters was correct, though, in that IE does hide some of it’s memory use in system services
I’ll say. I’m viewing this web page on Window XP and I’m not using Opera, Mozilla, Lynx, or even Internet Explorer. So what am I using? Why plain old Windows Explorer (which happens to take a 37MB of memory on my system). Try it for yourself. Newsflash: Windows Explorer==Internet Explorer
I’ll say. I’m viewing this web page on Window XP and I’m not using Opera, Mozilla, Lynx, or even Internet Explorer. So what am I using? Why plain old Windows Explorer (which happens to take a 37MB of memory on my system). Try it for yourself. Newsflash: Windows Explorer==Internet Explorer
Going to osnews.com in Explorer causes the memory usage to jump to about 13MB on my machine. Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer are actually seperate executables, they simply use most of the same components. Windows Explorer (the one with the tree view) actually used to be a third executable, but they reimplemented the functionality as a side-panel for Explorer/IE windows. Explorer also happens to be the same application that handles the desktop, taskbar, and start menu.
On Mac OS X :
Safari is 15MB
MSIE is 19MB
Netscape 7 is 25MB (IIRC)
On OS X, Safari and IE have ~about the same amount of features and neither have a whole lot integrated into the OS. Given its only ~4MB larger – – I wouldn’t call it bloated. Of course Netscape is larger though – its more than just a browser.
Just my opinion.
Oh, yeah – –
Mozilla Firebird wieghs in at a WHOPPING 27MB! (on os x)
I’ve been reading the comments and the usual pointing is starting again, we even get to the point OSX is reviewd :S
Stop bullshitting around and get to the point of the program.
It removes components of windows, which you can remove 80% manually, so I say good point. But when it’s possible to remove them in the first place, why should I refer to a third party application to do this for starters? (I can come up with the windows and car or microwave meals, but I think everybody knows them by now)
It makes you’re system unstable, if you remove the wrong things, good point. That’s why the program try’s to point out those sections by labeling them, not the best way, because everyone tends to call himself an expert. (trust me, I worked for an ISP and ppl calling themselfves an expert are mostly full of themselves (p.s. so I’m proud to announce I’m no expert on the field of tweaking windows))
I think it’s good these sort of programs excist, but I they have a point, I doubt it. I like to try to find out how others tweaked there windows and to follow their guidelines to do it myself. So we have the tweakers, the wanne be tweakers and then there are the users, they don’t give a fuck about their computer as long as it works. And then there is the fourth party, the so called “experts” the ones who will use this program.
I think I stopped making sense and will go to eat my diner
I would prefer a slim version of any OS. The shit basic minimum to boot the system. Then I can take my time adding applications or features i would actually use. That is primary reason i like NetBSD so much. Its nice to do a ps -aux right after install and count the number of running processes on your fingers. It brings the control back to the user. Windows is in sad need of this along with the majority of Linux distros.
Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer are actually seperate executables, they simply use most of the same components.
IE is just a stub program. It weighs in at a measley 89Kb. It just provides the toolbars and a couple of other functions for the browser window. All the real work is done by the components that constitute the browser architecture like shdocvw.dll, urlmon.dll, mshtml.dll, etc. And those components are loaded everytime that Explorer loads, in effect loading IE.
but the vast majority of users do /not/ upgrade, they replace. Why should they? Most people look at their computer as an appliance, and we don’t go around upgrading our DVD players or toasters. Upgrading might make sense to those of us techie enough to know better, but most don’t care and nor should they. People tend to hold onto their computers for longer then perhaps they should (to some) and for that reason resource bloat is important. I know people running XP on fairly old machines, and 4 gig HDs can go damn fast. It was the lack of bloat that attracted me to Linux in the first place back around 1998 when my PC was a Pentium 133 mhz with 48 megs of RAM. Win 98 was sluggish on it, and Linux felt nicer. That was before Gnome and KDE….
does it run in wine?
KDE 1 wasn’t bloated at all, and on the same machine felt just as fast as anything else on Linux at the time. What happened?
Guys, guys… Why does it matter if IE’s using 13mb and Mozilla using 18mb? What ACTUALLY matters is the speed at which they _load the pages_, and on all the systems I’ve put together, MSN Explorer 7 / 8.0 loads pages the fastest, followed by IE6, then Konq under Cygwin, followed by Gecko-based apps, and then Opera in last place.
Now, I’m not just being an asshole here who doesn’t care about resource usage – don’t forget I’m the guy who got 95 down to 3.9mb… (“Man Shrinks Win95 to 5mb”).
I simply fail to see why anyone cares about a 3mb difference in resource usage on their MAIN boxes…
I, personally, never have an app using less than 30mb of RAM – because if you have > 1Gb of RAM, NT-based OSes just spread it around liberally. With 2Gb in this box, and a 3Gb pagefile, that’s over 5Gb of usable RAM; a fair percantage of which gets allocated to each app.
Right now, Explorer is using 30, StyleXP is using 20, my 8 IE windows are using 20 each, and the combined total for svchost is > 80mb.
But… I don’t care
I swear by 98lite — it, along with Proxomitron and Opera, deserve primary credit for extending the useful life of my old machine. To those who suggest that you can replicate the functionality of XP/2000lite (or 98lite for that matter) by just manually hacking away the unwanted components: Does the name “Regedit” have a familiar ring to it?
I cannot speak from direct experience about the 2 new programs, but *a lot* of what 98lite does is to cut down on the Registry bloat. Sure, hard disk space is too cheap to meter these days, but CPU cycles and RAM are still valuable resources last time I checked.
BTW: Thanks for the Nano98 link, Xhargh. When I finally get rid of my clunker I will try that install for fun.
for MS to compete with Netscape in browser war. It was MS’ decision to integrate IE into their OS when they released 98. Their move eventually led Netscape to go out of business.
Now IE is an extremely useful tool for ad agencies, hackers, PC hijackers and so forth. Thanks to the default browser of Windows that is closely integrated into the OS, the potential of taking control over PCs in remote location is limitless. IE is guaranteed to be there because MS said so and designed Windows in such ways, and few IE users bother tweaking the ‘Default’ setting for better protections. Not to mention IE is ubiquitous, used by 94+% of internet users (http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox26.html).
Some may say IE is slimmer than other browsers. But after all necessary protections against hackers installed(pop up blocker, etc), is it still slimmer than any of other browsers? Go figure.
LitePC is a great product in concept, but as long as IE recides inside Windows, the most essential advantage (read: “problem”) that Windows can offer will still exist. IE is a blessing for MS, curse for users. Thanks DoJ for giving MS anything but punishment.
I would love to slim down my Windows XP but I’m not paying all that money just to do so. Anyone know of a free program maybe open source that does the same stuff as XPLite?
–Idoxash
I have tried products like this and the past and just ended up with headaches and issues and a hacked f*cked up Windows box.
How is this one any different?
I applied 98lite to WinME and Win98 to separate IE from the operating system and use the Win95 file explorer and junk lots of other crap. The systems boot incredibly fast and don’t crash. The speed and stability improvements were amazing. If you go all the way (ie. the “micro option”), you can’t use MS HTML Engine-dependent software like Outlook but that wasn’t exactly a problem.
In comparison, Win XP in the same household (but on a much faster new machine) is excruciatingly slow and clumsy.
For those who question ridding an OS of eye candy and wizards and all the other Fisher-Price crap in an OS, well, it’s your choice isn’t it? Some of use prefer to actually do work in applications and have the OS fade into the background and never so much as burp.
Honestly, I think the typical age of an OSNEWS commenter is about 12.
First off, this discussion is not about browser wars, and we all know that not matter what browser you use it will consume more memory. Not too many machines these days Run 1 gig + of memory, but for those who do, Congrates.
This discussion is about BLOAT, and how it is consuming our hard drive, and our precious resources such as memory. Heck, I just got out of a Game of Unreal Tournament 2003, and it consumes about 120 meg of my 256 of Ram.
We are discussing the bloat that some of us use, and most of at hom e users do not use. For example, DCOM .. This is a hidden service Feature, that has allowd MS Blast, and varients to cause heck on Windows Systems.
I Suppose the real discussion should be about Security. Either case, I’m sure everyone can agree, that if we remove some bloat, and have the bloat as an optional install (sorta like Unattended Installes) Most features are still there.
I have personally used Xplite … (1.0.0160) (1.0.174 = Current) and I have never had a problem with anything I removed. Of Course you will need to keep the Windows Xp CD handy Just in case you need to install support files to add support to your Box. I think it removed about (+/-) 200 meg and since then not much has went back on. Microsoft is making it Bloating to eliminate the competeition, This is not to disclued them, but to give a HOME user the ability to install an OS, where everything you need it there..
I hope this helps .
Have a good one .
Canadian, IAM
I concurr with your last statement; I was actually one of the inner-core beta testers for XPLite, due to my previous role at MSBetas, and the fact I kept playing with XPLite on LH and .NET during the beta process.
The ONLY time I broke anything was on unsupported versions of Windows, such as .NET, LH, Neptune, etc. However, XPLite _REALLY_ doesn’t remove that much :
You’re much better off just sticking to 98, ME, or NT if you want a small, embedded or “slow-box” install. Saying that, I do install .NET Server on low-end boxes (P1 200s w/32mb of RAM, etc), purely because it runs ‘acceptably’, and is stable as a rock.
IE on Macos X and IE on Windows are 2 separate source trees even though they are probably a bit interconnected these days
Sure, getting rid of some programs might free up some hard drive space, but does that really fix the bloat issue? Sure, maybe you’ve freed 400MB (or whatever) of hard drive, but is your machine really any faster? Probably not. Of course, you have the satisfaction of knowing you removed programs you didn’t need, but if none of these programs were running and it doesn’t really improve speed, what differece does it make? If you really want to get rid of the bloat, do the following:
1. Turn on Explorer classic interface and get rid of the web view crap
2. Lose themes
3. Right click on my computer ….
– Tune the performance settings and turn off all the eye candy/bloated display effects you don’t need
– Turn off system restore and file protection (if you know what you’re doing, you don’t need either)
4. Disable zip folders
5. Clean out your task tray and get rid of any apps from startup that don’t need to be there
Do all of the above and you will probably find that your machine runs MUCH faster than it used to. I think the only thing XPLite would be good for would be to remove IE but since it doesn’t really do that, what good is it?
On my XP box, IE uses 13 MB, Opera 7.11 uses 15 MB and Mozilla 1.5 uses 18 MB.
Doing what, though ? I regularly get mozilla.exe (Firebird) processes in the 150M – 200M range, although obviously with a lot open.
…sounds interesting?
Not particularly, given 120 gig hard disks cost around AU$150.
How is Windows any more bloated than Linux and their package management systems automatically installed a bunch of dependancies?