ericore

The purpose of this guide is to help choose the components you remove wizely. You can skip this guide entirely and make informed decisions based on the good descriptions found here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff716257.aspx Below I list the components which in the case of Windows 7 Professional lead to somewhat relevant reduction of disk space of the windows 7 installation. If I state "saves no space", either this component is not in windows 7 professional or DISM does not remove physical files from the WIM; or its extremely irrelvant like under 1MB. In Accessories, I only recommend Table PC components (unless you have an x86 compatible tablet which are quite rare) -You could also pick gadgets, but the other components barely save any hard drive space at all. In Drivers, I recommend you select TV tuners (unless you are a TV tuner enthousiast) - Modem you need for dial up, fax and phones (not for mass storage obviously), you should save space if you uncheck others (your call, but I only recommend TV tuners In Language Packs, I recommend you select NOTHING as there is absolutely no hard disk space saved; next to none. In Multimedia, you should remove anything you don't want except photo experience. Keep in mind some games/software use Windows Media Player, Windows Media Codec Pack, and Windows Media Enco. In Networking, I recommend you only remove Brandcache, Offline and telnet (mostly for privacy concerns), the rest save next to none disk space. For security, either remove Remote Desktop and RemoteFX Client, or get the security updates for them. Internet Information Services: I have no evidence that removing these services save any space. Mobile PC: Remove SideShow and ALS driver (unless you want to be tracked or can make use of sideshow) Printing: Remove nothing, saves barely any hard disk space, specifically Premium Tools and Scan management take close to 0 space. System: I recommend if you are going barebones, to remove HTML engine, indexing service (privacy), Microsoft Net Framework (most apps use 2.0 or 4.0 or greater, 3.5 slows system down and uses up disk space) VirtualPC: No disk space savings here again. Even if you don't use VirtualPC or hyper V, why remove it? Unless you think it can speed up boot, as those drivers are loaded upon every boot. I leave it to you. Misc: No space savings Unknown: Remove group policy and mass storage service (not installed by default) about 15-20 MB saved. I did not make an error in mentioning any other component. Components like Anytime Upgrade are either not available in my MSDN release or do not contribute any significant space savings under Win Toolkit. If you want more information about Internet Information Services (IIS) on Windows 7, go here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753473.aspx Happy Modding.

I kinda answered the answer to my own question, the key is GIMAGEX. Maybe my rant will help you understand its tabs.

To my knowledge dism does not save changes to the datastream. However, I began experimenting with DISM. The original directory size of the mount folder is 10396, and the original wim size is 2.422. I removed some stuff, and added some windows updates. The balance was 10254 directory size and the wim size 2.618 I then exported this wim image and the wim size went to 2.575 My question is, the fok(If I may speak frankly)? I can tell you that the updates took 360 mb, to get to the 10254. Now if dism does not save the datastream, then the size of the wim should be 2.422 + compressed 360MB. Now the dism size being 2.575, it means the updates were compressed to 153MB which makes sense since the sum of the updates is 96MB, + all all the junk files the updates leave on the windows installation. That being said, the only point to dism that I see are to add drivers and updates, and remove unused components that won't take less space off the disc, but will take more space off the hard drive. That said, I guess the same applies to the component remover within Win Toolkit, or does it pull any fancy moves to reduce the size of the iso as some other tools do? Either answer is ok, but if its the former it would be nice if you included the amount of space it would save on the hard drive for each component so the user can make more intellegent decisions as few users actually know what each component means, and your descriptions are not shall I say, user friendly. Personally, I preffer dism for integrading stuff as I did try the toolkit for this, but I found it very misleading and buggy. I am well aware that for the most part DISM does not save the datastream. However,

I have Nlite many times. Pretty much the only "bug", true "bug" obviously there are clitches, is how nlite seemingly inexplicably shrinks the i386 folder without component removal. You'll start with something like 300 mb (displayed by nlite), you only select bootable image, do that, close nlite, reopen nlite and now it shows 290-295mb; wtf. Go run XP and you get the cursed "RUNDLL32.exe Window cannot access the specified device" In other words, Nlite f**ked up the ISO that was running perfectly before. How does this happen. How does nlite shrink, delete etc....when you are only using the create boot cd option? How?

***Updated August 31 2011*** These updates are designed for latest Vista SP2 32bit latest Technet builds. These builds include more updates than a slip-streamed Vista SP2 or retail Vista SP2. If media is derived from one of these then this update pack is not sufficient. What's New Removed Super-seeded/unimportant updates. Added 1 security update, 1 fix for IE9 Excluded Security Updates .net 3.5, Internet Explorer,WMP, Windows Search, Windows Backup(KB2478935), Remote Desktop(KB2481109), Distributed File system (KB2535512). Reasons: Can't integrate net 3.5 with vlite, so can't include net 3.5 updates. You should remove internet explorer with vlite and keep it removed or install IE9. I particularly hate Vista's Search function. I don't keep any of the other mentioned components when vlite-ing. Windows Media Codecs security updates ARE included. Includes 49 security updates Also includes hotfix for increased compatibility with 4k Sector Hard drives. Includes Update for Increased App Compatibility. Includes prerequisites/fixes for IE9. Extract, then Integrate with latest "Vlite without waik". http://hotfile.com/d..._HotFix.7z.html

Moved to Vista Unattended.

Much Thanks for reposting. Now to see if Registry Defrag works. I remember trying to create a portable version once, and I couldn't get that to work. Hence why, I didn't want to create the addon myself. NO WAREZ DISCUSSION!!!