A mini-build of Win2K?

Hi Jaclaz ,

Totally on topic for a Mo, in respect of this:

Ok, here you are.
In the attached file there are three files
NT911dir.txt is a dir /s of a minimal Win2k install WITHOUT WBEM
WINNTdir.txt is a dir /s of a minimal Win2k install with files UPXed and WBEM
WIPdir.txt is a dir /s of the files needed for a certain function (i.e. Control Panel or Add printer)

Please note that in both version I moved the "external" directory "Documents and Settings" inside the NT directory, renaming it to NTDocs and, since there are no programs installed, deleted the "Program Files" folder, AFTER having moved the MSINFO folder inside the NT directory.

Is this a mini Win2K edition? If so, what size is it please installed, can you include all service pack info etc, Can I request a copy of those files PLEASE! BTW what's WBEM, pardon my ignorance?

R&R,

ispy

@ispy
you managed to "resurrect" a post on MSFN dating back to 2005
http://www.msfn.org/...-...8.html&st=5

The experiment at the time was the following:
Install Win2k normally
Start to manually remove items until something stopped working - in case re-add the item - fix in steps the Registry
Start to manually UPXing files until somethin stopped woorking - in case de-compress the file

The result is a slimmed down Win2k with lots of functions removed, but with enough left for what it was meant to:
being the second install, for recovery purposes, on my system.

The size is around 80 Mb, if I recall correctly around 77 Mb UPXed with WBEM and 82 NOT UPXed and WITHOUT WBEM.

WBEM is the "generic" name for WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation)
http://en.wikipedia....erating_systems
http://en.wikipedia....Instrumentation

Due to the aim for which the experiment started, there was NO need for Service Packs (latest does not always mean best) as the machine had no need for 48-bit LBA addressing, nor it was intended to have any connection with the outside world, so it was conducted on Win2K without any service pack or KB fix.

Moreover, it was/is NOT "optimized", i.e. it does not represent the minimum system you can have, I adopted the "philosophy" that is attributed to American Indians, that are said that when they went hunting, and hit a deer with an arrow, they started chasing it running behind it until they thought they had run enough, then stopped the chase and went for another deer".

The objective was to build a slim (thus fast) system to be hosted on my primary FAT16 partition, and after having reached the 80 Mb size I was satisfied enough to indulge not in further (maybe possible) reductions.

jaclaz

Hi Jaclaz ,

Many Thanks for posting the details in respect of the mini Win2K, is it okay to carry on in this post or should I move it?.

I have always liked & admired Windows 2KPro, its not fussy, for me proved rock solid stable, both on Pc's at home & when in work it was a good work horse then!

I have been looking for something like this for a very long time, lookked at "TommyP's" stuff but didn't fancy it!
Circa 80Mb that is impressive, I have used nLite in the past but it proved not ruthless enough I think 140Mb's was the best I could do but installed twas a lot larger.

Based on the internal contents of your fileset, was wondering if a Batch File that recursively navigates through the folders as laid out by your good self, with a "Delete all except util," all the files you mention would work, & you say this process was undertaken on a "gold" edition of Win2K (no SP's Hotfixes). Having the smallest wait for it, footprint of 2K is not necessarily the goal as this needs to be balanced against "Functionality", anyway the batch file could be incrementaly engineered to surgically remove what is not needed to suit ones own needs & requirements. would it run on a NTFS system do you think? What about the Registry alterations do you still have a copy?

Nice one, I feel some experiments coming on!

R&R,

ispy

It "could" work on NTFS, actually it did work for NTFS, that was/is the reason for such a build, having a minimal GUI based access from the first primary FAT16 partition to all the other (logical volumes inside extended partition) ones, including FAT32 and NTFS.

"Building" it on a NTFS volume may prove to be tricky because of permissions and such stuff.

The procedure followed at the time was the following AFAICR:
1) Using as reference the Black Viper site:
http://www.blackviper.com/
disable ALL not really needed service
2) Delete a number of files evidently not needed, like .hlp and .chm files, and those files clearly not needed (just as an example TWAIN stuff for scanners), "force" the use of "default" 2K drivers (as an example the experiment was conducted on VIA Epia which used the VIA Mass Storage drivers and S3 video ones, that were changed to "Dual PCI IDE Controller" and to "Standard VGA")
3) Run Regseeker to "clean" the Registry
4) Loop to 2) a number of times
5) Copy (from another booted OS) the "Documents and settings" to NTDocs inside the NT Directory
6) Use manual Registry edit and the COA2 utility to "migrate" the paths in the Registry
7) repeat 5) and 7) for "Program Files"
8) start running EXTENSIVELY Procmon, Filemon and Regmon AND Dependency Walker on a "suspect" set of files
9) Try deleting them, reboot, if anything not working re-add it
10) Run Regseeker to "clean" the Registry
11) Loop to 8) with another set of file
12) Run against the Registry ANY cleaning utility (Freeware) known to man
13) Choose semi-randomly something else and loop to 9)
14) Once reached a certain size, start UPXing everything (in sets) until it did not boot anymore, unUPX latest set, reUPX a subset and so on.....

I doubt that it is easily repeatable without much work.

Since I don't throw away anything, ever, it must be somewhere.

But though being "conservative" I am also a known "misplacer" of things, it may take me some time to find the backup.

If I recall correctly, I do have some 5 or 6 versions of it, "snapshots" of intermediate steps, that could be useful to re-create a batch or .script or whatever.

And yes, I guess it's better if we have a "dedicated" thread.



jaclaz

Hi Jaclaz ,

Could use nLite to start with to get to circa 150Mb's what do you suggest with or without SP4/5 unofficial.

Looks like you poured a lot of hours into this little project & circa 80Mb's is pretty impressive by anyones standards!
I think I will Install win2K onto one of my older PC's fat file system, copy the completed Windows folder into another folder or partition thus creating a 2nd set of files as a backup to copy back if probable disaster strikes + export the registry. Will need to use Ntfs4Dos if on a Ntfs partition but will do that another time.

Create a dos boot disk/floppy with ramdisk & use DelX or DAB (Delete all But) or multi delete to slice down to the fileset you have listed, reboot & see what happens. It's no good doing it on a live system as the OS may throw a "hissy fit" if a file is in use.

Heck, I'll be pleased if I can get below 100Mb's. Did you ever use any drive/folder compression techniques at all?

R&R,

ispy

P.S. I have created a 147Mb Win2K nLited frankenstein, which essentially is everything cut out of it apart from all the red nLite notices you get warning you that adverse effects could insue if I delete them, I know this is only an advisory notice from nLite. I will now burn to iso & install! Keep ya updated!

GOOD

I have found the zips where I stored the intermediate builds.

I am attaching a listing of the contents. maybe it is useful as you can follow the same "path", i.e. if applying directly the mods of last steps breaks something, you can try making the mods of the step before.
2nd step (first step was a default install) is about 260 Mb (installed)
3rd step is about 225 Mb (installed)
4th step is about 180 Mb (installed)
5th step is about 115 Mb (installed)
6th step is about 108 Mb (installed)
7th step is about 106 Mb (installed)
8th step is about 86 Mb (installed)
8th step W is abut 87 Mb (installed)

I cannot find trace of the "final" version zips, I'll have to search more, though the listings should be the ones you already have.



jaclaz

Hi Jaclaz ,

Many "Thanks" for the files you have provided!

P.S. I have created a 147Mb Win2K nLited frankenstein, which essentially is everything cut out of it apart from all the red nLite notices you get warning you that adverse effects could ensue if I delete them, I know this is only an advisory notice from nLite. I will now burn to iso & install! Keep ya updated!

1st snag/mistake I have made is the Win2K I have used is Win2K Sp4, however I have since found an unofficial SP5
see here http://www.softpedia...icial-SP5.shtml
So intention is to slipstream this service pack (SP5 Unofficial) then re-slash the guts of it with nLite again. Sorry Three steps back two steps forward! (most of the files will be nuked anyway but some update features of the SP might remain)

One other consideration that has crossed my mind is unless by some very large miracle we are working on the same or similar PC's (Hardware) the fileset that you have used will in the case of drivers [M$] will be configured to your PC. I may need to eventually go into the reg & delete the Enum Reg or enum (or equiv in 2K) key along with some alteration of the driver files to make my fileset which will be slightly different to yours! Sorry not very well explained but I hope you understand the gist of it (possible Hal.dll errors).

Anyway will proceed with plans BRB

R&R,

ispy

If you "force" a Standard HAL you won't have problems, of course some features may be missing.

As well use as generic as possible drivers, for IDE and Video.

The "good" thing about using 2K as a base is that most probably it won't have included in the source "specific" manufacturer's drivers for the board and will use "compatible" ones.

Once again, I completely miss this "frenzy" for the "latest" Service Pack.

Win2k booted and worked allright in it's initial release, and with the only exception of 48-bit LBA addressing, I cannot remember any update that is really needed for a really "minimal" system.

jaclaz

Hi Jaclaz ,

Update of where I am up too. Appologies for not getting back sooner but have had hardware probs on the secondary PC that I wanted to use Hardware failure & needed to upgrade ram. All sorts of probs but have resolved, fingers crossed.

1st off here is the PC spec of my machine currently working off:
Mobo: Aopen AK33 see here: http://www.motherboa...open/ak33-b.htm (Watch out fro popups)
Chipset KT133
AMD duron @ 700Mhz Socket a (462)
256Mb Ram
Video card VGA
Hard Disk 20Gb partitioned ST320423A
CD Lite-on-CD-RW SOHR-5239V
DirectX Version 7.0A

Source Win2K nlite details undertaking fresh install:
Product name Windows 2000 Pro
With Service pack 4 previously slipstreamed.
Version 5.0.2195.6717
Path to source files on HDD = C:\W2k
Size 413.24Kb's
Slipstreamed Unofficial Service pack 5 = W2KSp51.exe [209Mb's] this is not a M$oft Product.
Integrated install completed successfully.
Using nLite Vers 1.4.7 (portable)
Reports:
1) Windows media player needs 'ACM Core Codecs'
Do you want to uncheck & keep the needed componenet (ACM Core Codecs) [YES]
2) 'Group policy management console' needs 'local security settings' Do you want to to uncheck the needed componenet (Loacal Security settings) [YES]
Cut out everything that was not marked in red with the reinstallation of the two reports above
Finished total size 148.42MB's.
The installation was reduced by 266.14Mb's

Unattended presets:
Product key XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX
English [United Kingdom]
Localisation English [UK]
Keyboard [UK]
Location [UK]
Turn off Hibernate
Computer name ME
Workgroup Anon
Timezone GMT
Volume label WDPOEM_EN [G:]
Bootable ISO 151Mb's

Formatted C:\ Installed to C:\ size 489Mb's
Used space free 2.45Gb's
Installed on Fat32 No label set, partition.
Screen area 800x600 (Screen res)
Show all hidden files + folders
Used Ls.exe - Filelist Generator freeware & portable to list all hidden files, all subfolders, Path, Filename, folder name, Extension, size & save date.
Total paging file for all drives 192Mb's
USB support [YES]
CD Drive Support [YES]
Used drive Image 2002 to Image Drive C:\ to D:\ Min Compression & Verify checks undertaken:

Installed Audio Drivers + Video Drivers (Third party) Left out Fax modem drivers not really interested in those!
Used Driver Grabber portable to obtain all third party drivers + M$oft Drivers (separately) i.e. Audio & Video (InstallShield setup Universal extracter will permit access to inner contents of Installshield Driver files) cross checked with no install Driver Genius & copied across most of the programs you have suggested & a few others I use.

Used Ls.exe Filelist Generator freeware & portable to list all hidden files, all subfolders, Path, Filename, folder name, Extension, size & save date. those log files are as attached for your perusal. To ascertain before & after fileset.

Have obtained commandline utils [CLI] For Del-All-But batch files. Have unlock files utils for files that may prove difficult to remove.
Have copied across Boot files & WINNT folder to D:\ & have copied the contents of the Win2K CD to D:\ to perform fresh install & acquire raw files if required.
When writing batch file when the time comes maybe prudent rather than to delete files to engage or utilize, the move command, rather than delete, as there will be a copy of the files in a repository on D:\ to reinstall if needed plenty of room left on D:\.

Backed up boot files Ntldr, boot.ini, Ntdetect.com, Ntoskrnl.exe, Hal.dll, Winlogon.exe, win32K.sys, was wondering about SMSS.EXE + CSRSS.EXE?

Have also exported the complete registry in reg file 14.6Mb to D:\ [W2K1.reg]

Will now start to look at your files that you have uploaded, see attachment for list of files on my PC to date, also was wondering whether there would be any mileage in using XPlite/2KLite to see if any further reduction on the full install is worth while.

Some other programs I have obtained Unlocker V1.8 Clever Cleaner V2.0 ATF Cleaner V3.0 Remove Backups 32 AnalogX

The "good" thing about using 2K as a base is that most probably it won't have included in the source "specific" manufacturer's drivers for the board and will use "compatible" ones.

How do you do this?

Regards & Respect,

ispy