Make winxp to minimal size with nlite

In normal circumstance, after installing, a full version of windows xp takes around 1GB (after turn off paging file) hard disk space. Windows XP has been shipped with alot of components which maybe you dont need and maybe never use them like : support for netware network, transmeta cpu, netmeeting, help and supports, driver and dll caches, ...

While alot of people want to run winxp in minimal space environment like usb disk or ram disk, it's a good idea to remove those un-needed components and just leave the most needed components stay. This post will show you how to reduce winxp size with the nLite tool - a very popular tool to slimdown winxp.

Requirement :

• Windows XP installation disc or iso image file. 
• Harddisk free space about 500MB to store temporily file copied from the installation disc. 
• nLite tool

Steps in detail :

Download and install nLite to your PC and follow the wizard to finish. Some notice and screenshot :

Select task and fill the information for unattend installation mode.

 

You can select which components should be removed. If you dont know some what component is used for, just leave it.

The hint is removing all but leave for the red color :)

Processing all task and at last we need to create a bootable iso image.

 

You can burn the iso image to a cdrom disc and install winxp as usual.

You can also use the iso image without burning it by using a Virtual Machine Management like VirtualBox.

After installing and turn off the page-file, the nlite-winxp just takes about 400MB. Very suitable to run on USB disk or in RAM ! Awesome.