Slimmingdown windows 7

Hi all,,this my slimmingdown windows 7 you need :
1.RT7Lite
2.Gimagex
3.Vlite
4.Unlocker

first make two folder on drive C:\ ---> (W7 and TEMP)




extract Windows 7 ISO into W7 Folder
Run RT7Lite, changge temporary directory to C:\TEMP, set priority to HIGH and browse to W7 Folder.,,wait until image loading complete.



go to C:\TEMP\RT_Mount_Boot\Windows\winsxs\Backup,,,delete all file in this folder with Unlocker (Totall 1.453 files),,wait untul delete process finish anda go to C:\TEMP\RT_Mount\Windows\winsxs\Backup,,,delete all file in this folder with Unlocker (Totall 2.142 files)





go to C:\TEMP\RT_Mount\Windows\System32\Recovery,,,delete "winRE.wim" file



go to C:\TEMP\RT_Mount\Windows\Web\Wallpaper,,,delete all folder except Windows folder



go to C:\TEMP\RT_Mount\Windows\Resources\Themes,,,delete all windows theme except Aero



go to C:\TEMP\RT_Mount\Windows\Resources\Ease of Access Themes,,delete all theme file except basic and classic file theme



go to C:\TEMP\RT_Mount\Windows\Globalization,,delete MCT Folder (this hidden folder)



go to C:\TEMP\RT_Mount\Users\Public,,,delete all sample file on this folder :
C:\TEMP\RT_Mount\Users\Public\Recorded TV\Sample Media\
C:\TEMP\RT_Mount\Users\Public\Public Videos\Sample Videos\
C:\TEMP\RT_Mount\Users\Public\Public Pictures\Sample Pictures\
C:\TEMP\RT_Mount\Users\Public\Public Music\Sample Music\

close window and empty Recycle Bin



back to RT7Lite Application and load my session--->LASTSESSION






click Apply, select "Build Current Image Only", set to HIGH and click Commit button,,wait until finish.



this size after RT7Lite



run Gimagex, select Apply Tabs, in Source option select install.wim in C:\W7\Sources, in destination option select TEMP folder, click Apply.


after Apply process done, select Capture Tabs, in Source option select TEMP folder, in destination save in C:\W7\Sources\,,,give name install2.wim, after done click Create button like this :



after Capture processing done, close Gimagex and go to C:\W7\Sources,,delete install.wim and rename install2.wim to install.wim.



run vLite and browse W7 folder, in task selection select Components.





in Components option select Games, Languages and Component Cache (winsxs)


Click Apply, if this message appear select No,,wait until process done.


this size after vLite process



run Winreducer for Windows 7 and setting like this :


browse W7 folder and Execute



this my setting :


uncheck all in RT7Lite Tabs








after all done click Launch button and wait until finish.



After process done,,dont click anything on Winreducer Application,,go to where your Winreduver folder place and open ISO\MOUNT\Windows\System32,,,copy "sendmail.dll and sendmail.dll.mui in this folder from your windows instalation drive or download these-->SENDMAIL.DLL
after that go to ISO\MOUNT\Windows\Fonts,,,and copy font needed for MS.Office 2007/2010 in this folder,,you can read this about FONT 2007/2010 or download these--->FONTS
if this message appear,, select "do this for all current items" and select Skip.


after done close window and back to Winreducer for Windows 7 Application, give a name you need for ISO and Create ISO.



Finally this my ISO size



i was tested installed MS.Office 2007/2010,NetFramework 4 and 4.5 work fine.

Hi zuardin.
Thanks a lot for the guide. There is a lot of info there that I did not know

In RT7Booster, why do you unselect everything in the RT7lite tab??

Also, what was your starting ISO size?

Yes, this is interesting but you could choose to use WinReducer for Windows 7 to do an automatically clean of uneeded "Themes", "Wallpapers", "Cursors", ...

==> just choose "Customization" -> "Themes"

Thanks a lot for this ...

That's a 32-bit image. I'm about to do a lighter-than-1GB 64-bit image. I just need WinReducer for Windows 7 to be completed.

theKramer wrote:

Hi zuardin.
Thanks a lot for the guide. There is a lot of info there that I did not know

In RT7Booster, why do you unselect everything in the RT7lite tab??

Also, what was your starting ISO size?

i think every component was delete with RT7Lite so i dont select anything on RT7Lite tabs (i was trying and some dont work properly,,i will be trying again to make small size again ),,
My ISO Size 730mb and after instalation 1.7gb-1.9gb (i forget what exact )

winterstorm2050 wrote:

Yes, this is interesting but you could choose to use WinReducer for Windows 7 to do an automatically clean of uneeded "Themes", "Wallpapers", "Cursors", ...

==> just choose "Customization" -> "Themes"

Thanks a lot for this ...

thanks winterstorm2050,,but i like manual delete,,this will be knowing me what i doing,,thanks for your tutorial on RT7Lite forums,,i combine that methode,,i hope you add more component to delete and tweaks like RT7lite on Winreducer, so future i dont use RT7Lite again cause RT7Lite discontinue,,thanks great job,,

Great Tutorial, lots of variables with this setup. I asked myself "which components should be removed with which program" a compelling question. I'd agree it would be cool to see these RT7 features in WinReducer. You guys should join up with MSFN for more exposure. That community is great with this kind of material. Just in time for windows 8 too. Cant wait to start breaking that into pieces. Keep up the good work.

Hi zuardin.
How did you keep .NET functionality?

theKramer wrote:

Hi zuardin.
How did you keep .NET functionality?

you can use my lastsession,its keep it,work with net 4 and 4.5

Nice result, I wish we could see one software doing this: 4in1
Maybe for Windows 9

Darknanaki wrote:

Hello everyone ^^. I got a question each time I reach the vlite part, the moment I browse for the windows 7 folder and press apply, I am greeted with an error box saying "Error loading BOOT.WIM. Aborting." I've tried on different computers but I always get the same message. The Windows 7 I am slimming down is Windows 7 ULTIMATE 64bit and the OS size at the moemnt is 0.67gb. Any ideas?

you must apply wim image with gimagex first,,i wish this hope u my friend,,thanks

Hi Zuardin,wat's happen if we do not copy "sendmail" and "Fonts" in the Iso?I do not use MS office but LibreOffice.Thank you for the answer.

Vinc wrote:

Hi Zuardin,wat's happen if we do not copy "sendmail" and "Fonts" in the Iso?I do not use MS office but LibreOffice.Thank you for the answer.

Hi Vinc,,if u do not copy sendmail, SEND TO DEKSTOP shorcut mising and for font u can copy or not but some error with appear cause some font needed for office installation,,thanks.

Hi Zuardin,another question.Can I use my own preset for RT7 Lite?

Vinc wrote:

Hi Zuardin,another question.Can I use my own preset for RT7 Lite?

Hi Vinc,,do you mean you own preset from winreducer to rt7lite?

no, my own preset I made with rt 7 lite,and not from Winreducer.

Vinc wrote:

no, my own preset I made with rt 7 lite,and not from Winreducer.

Yes, you can,,first rename your lastsession to lastsession1 and copy it on C:\Program Files\Rockers Team\RT 7 Lite x86\Preset,,

zuardin, thanks a lot for this helpful and detailed guide

I noticed how you've used vLite to remove WinSXS files. I tried this with Win8 because I had made a sysprep'd image after applying Win8 updates, but the WinSXS folder was huge on the final captured image. I know that WinSXS is supposed to be a lot smaller than what explorer tells us it is as explorer sees the hardlinked files as actual files. But still, after my capture that WinSXS folder remained quite huge even in the install.wim.

So, I used vLite to remove the WinSXS files on Win8 Pro and it did work. I was able to install from the slimmed image and indeed the WinSXS folder was very small after that -- not only on the .wim but also in the OS install.

As you probably know, removing WinSXS breaks the "Turn Windows features on or off" (under Program and Features). Is there a way to prevent this? And also, is that the only thing removing WinSXS breaks? Will it mess with the ability to install Win updates in the future? Please share what you've learned about this, if you will.

vLite is the best method of removing the winSXS cache. It is the only one, on Windows 7 at least that would not "break" windows update.

Have a read of this thread, as this is the origin of zuardins method.

Quick Q1: Did you have to do a capture/apply with gImagex before using vLite on your Windows 8 iso, or were you able to use it directly on the iso?

Quick Q2: Did you use vLite before or after WinReducer 8?

Thx

Thanks for the link, TheKramer

Quick Q1: Did you have to do a capture/apply with gImagex before using
vLite on your Windows 8 iso, or were you able to use it directly on the
iso?

Actually, I made a Win7 VM in which I installed vLite. I then gave the VM access to the drive on which I had my extracted Win8 folder. So I ran vLite from within the Win7 VM, but on a folder on my SSD drive where I had my Win8 image extracted. The reason I did that is because I tried using vLite on a (live) Win8 install but it produced a BSOD (first one I've had with Win8 on this system) so I think there is incompatibility there.

Quick Q2: Did you use vLite before or after WinReducer 8?

I used vLite on an image as made by WinReducer, so after, yes.

sorry my friend,,iam not yet test for win8,,

OK, thanks zuardin Yeah I tried vLite again and it does work for removal of WinSXS stuff on Win8. However, a couple of things should be noted:

1. When you use vLite on a RTM or Upgrade image (I only tried those) before having integrated updates (or otherwise having used sysprep to integrate updates) -- so in other words, on a clean image -- vLite's WinSXS removal only removes like 200mb from the install.wim. Now, when you open that vLited install.wim in 7-Zip, the WinSXS directory shows much smaller when compared to the WinSXS folder (again using 7-Zip to view) in the original install.wim (like GB's smaller). But in reality as far as the actual install.wim size, it is only a difference of 200mb or so. In this you can see proof that the WinSXS folder is reported as very big by explorer (or 7-Zip's explorer in this case), but in reality these are hardlinks to existing Windows files and vLiting the WinSXS folders does not (and should not) remove the actual files those hardlinks refer to. So we can conclude from this that it doesn't make much of a difference to perform vLite on the WinSXS folder of a clean/original image. Further, I installed the image with WinSXS removal in a VM and was able to fullly update it in a VM. So that is good news.

However, when you perform vLite on an image on which you've integrated updates already (or use a sysprep capture on which you've installed updates), and then you perform vLite on that image, then yes, it will make a big difference in size when you reduce the WinSXS folder. And of course it would make most sense to perform vLite WinSXS removal after the image has updates applied.

2. In one test I have found that if you perform vLite WinSXS removal on an image before you use WinReducer, WinReducer will not work with that image. You can point it to the image folder, but nothing will happen (it won't load/mount).

So, to conclude:
a. vLite only makes sense to use after updates have been integrated
b. vLite needs to be done after using WinReducer

I'm not totally clear yet on whether or not all Win updates will install successfully after doing vLite WinSXS removal. But I was able to install all updates offered by WU on my VM install of the vLited image. So WU updates did all work. However, I had some extra updates .msu's (from MDL Forum Win8 update repo) that were not offered by WU, and 2 of these did not install. I'm not sure if these were just incompatible updates or if it had something to do with WinSXS removal.

But I can confirm (as was the case with Win7) that WinSXS removal in Win8 leads to the same issue of disabling the "Turn Windows features on or off". Personally, I don't mind this very much, especially since I would only do the WinSXS removal on images on which I've already installed .NET 3.5 (which is an option of the "Turn Windows features on or off"). Besides that I don't use the "Turn Windows features on or off" personally.

So I would suggest if any of you try the vLite WinSXS removal, to keep an eye out for what works and what doesn't, so we can improve our knowledge of these things. Thanks for reading

I have absolutely no idea what you guys are talking about But I can bloat about my Windows 7 64-bit install.wim file being 860 MB

hi! zuardin :
Do you ever try to "Sysprep" after Slimmingdown the win7 sp1 ? It can work ?

josephy1 wrote:

hi! zuardin :
Do you ever try to "Sysprep" after Slimmingdown the win7 sp1 ? It can work ?

No,,i dont try to sysprep,, i juts installed on virtualbox and installing application i need and then i make image with Gimagex (capture),,after finish, i try to installing on real computer and this work fine.

Great Tutorial! Just one small question, how do I unmount the image from gimagex? All files are still in the temp folder after I close gimagex...

Edit: Nevermind, I have captured it with Win Toolkit , works the same, it's faster plus you can unmount the image easily, so I think it's better than GimageX...

Hi Zuardin,i tried,and my Iso is 720 mb,but i have a problem with Windows Update.Windows try to install something when you call Windows Update,and it does not work,so i cannot install the updates.Do you have an ideo what the problem is?

Vinc wrote:

Hi Zuardin,i tried,and my Iso is 720 mb,but i have a problem with Windows Update.Windows try to install something when you call Windows Update,and it does not work,so i cannot install the updates.Do you have an ideo what the problem is?

Hi Vinc, this caused i am so extreamly delete for component on windows 7, exactly on winsxs folder its twice delete by rt7lite and vlite (before that i delete manually) i think iam never use windows update so i do that,,thanks.

some component from winter tested
- Services =>
. Background Intelligence Transfer Service (BITS)
. COM+ Event System (Breaks BITS and SENS)
. Cryptographic Services
. System Event Notification Service
. Windows Update
. Cryptographic Services (Breaks Windows Update)

- System =>
. Windows Cache File (winsxs)

Hi zuardin,

I want to ask if Virtual Keyboard will work if I use your method to slim my Win7.

Most Win7 Lite I download, I can't use virtual keyboard. If it not work, please tell me which component I should not remove in order for Virtual keyboard to work.

Thanks.