The purpose of this document

This guide will help you create a small Windows XP image, without loosing vital components and functions in Windows XP. It will help you integrate Service Pack 3, give you guidance on which components can safely be removed and which settings are required or easier in use then the default Windows XP installation.

It will limit installation time, disk usage and start up times to a bare minimum, while still containing all functionality required for use in a workspace environment.

Windows XP by itself carries a lot of information with it, that is not used in Virtual Storm or other VDI solutions, like drivers, screensavers, backgrounds and a lot more. These components can easily be removed using tools like nLite.

Installation assumptions

During this guide, a few assumptions are made. These include:

• You possess a legal Windows XP installation media. Service Pack levels are not important, but if it is Service Pack 3, you can skip a small part in this guide.
• You have downloaded Service Pack 3 onto your hard disk, in the same language as your Windows XP installation media. Unpacking is not necessary.
• If you want to integrate other Windows updates, you should download those too, including MUI's if you wish to integrate several languages.
• You have installed nLite, preferably version 1.4.9.1, since this guide was written to that version.
• Installing, integrating and copying the images, updates and Service Packs require approximately 3 GB of free disk space. Saving the actual ISO will require around 500 MB, so please have at least 3,5 GB of free disk space.

Tips and Tricks

Beforehand I want to bestow some tips on you.

First: This process from beginning to end takes about 3 hours to complete. Most of the time, this is during copying, integrating and other processes that you as user can not interact with.

In the bottom left corner on almost any screen of nLite is a small button, called "Tray". If you push it, nLite will be sent to the tray of your Windows Taskbar, while continuing to work on the desired step. This will allow you to perform other tasks on your computer, while nLite does the hard work invisibly.

Second: Please use the English version. There are some small bugs and mistranslations in other languages. This guide also presumes you have chosen this language.

The third tip is: Make presets! When you are done in a screen, look below it. If there is a button "Preset" you can save what you have done so far. If you later conclude something was wrong, just load the preset again and change what needs to be changed and try again. This saves you a lot of time reinventing what you already did.

And last but not least: This is just a guide! It is not meant to be followed to the letter, nor is it absolutely complete or maximized to produce a small bare image. It is meant as a helping hand on deciding what is needed and what is not needed, but surely there will be ways to make the image smaller, or even a lot smaller, by eliminating some functionality levels. Feel free to do so.

In this guide, all drivers will be stripped from this image, including the default printer drivers, soundcards, graphics cards and all. Because the image will be used in a VMware environment, there is no need for drivers. Printer drivers will be added later through shares, if you intend to install a local printer, you will need a driver disk, even if Windows usually knows this type of printer by default.

Getting to work

Setting up

During the use of nLite, you will require two folders. One containing all Service Packs, hot fixes and what not, meant for integration into your image. During this guide, this folder will be referred to as "updates". Create it in a convenient place, since you will have to point to it several times during this process.

The second folder is a temporary folder used by nLite itself. As you can imagine, an installation disk is not writeable, so nLite copies all files needed to this temporary folder, integrate drivers, updates and Service Packs into that folder and then create an iso-image from that folder. As stated before, this folder should be able to grow and grow a lot. During this guide, it will be referred to as "nLite-temp".

Insert the installation media into your workstation, close the auto run if needed and start nLite.

nLite step-by-step

Click Next to continue, this guide will presume you have chosen the English (Default) language. If you use nLite in a different language, you will have to translate all features of nLite yourself.

Preparation of files

Select "Browse" and point to your Windows XP installation media. If you selected a CD-ROM or other non-writeable media, you will be asked where to store the files. Select the previously created "nLite-temp". nLite will now copy all necessary files to this location.

After completing the copy, the fields will be filled with your Product name, Language, Service Pack and Version. Click "Next" to proceed to the presets selection.

Because this is a pre-used nLite, this list is filled. If this is your first time, this list should be empty or nearly empty. Even though working with presets can be handy, for the sake of this guide, just select "Next" without loading any presets.

What tasks do we want to perform on the loaded Windows XP installation. Again for the sake of this guide, we select "All". If you conclude you do not use any of the screens presented later on, deselect it in later tries. Hit "Next" to continue for now.

Integration of Service Packs, Hot Fixes and drivers

After completion, press "Next" to move to the next screen, Service Pack integration. Please keep in mind, that this screen only accepts and addresses Service Packs. Hotfixes, updates and other integrations can not be performed in this screen and will be addressed on the next screen.

If you do not already have the latest Service Pack for your Windows XP, click the appropriate link in the low left corner. This will take you directly to the download site of Microsoft.

To make it even easier:

for the English version of SP3 use the following link:

for the Dutch version of SP3, use this link instead:

Please do keep in mind, this is approximately 300 or 350 MB to download. Download it once and save it, it takes a long time to completely download it each time.

If you already saved SP3 in the correct language, or if your download is completed, click "Select" and double click on the execute for the Service Pack. The extraction and integration of SP3 will begin and take approximately 15 minutes. After the integration, click "Ok" and "Next".

Update integration works in a similar way as Service Pack integration. In the bottom right is the button to "Insert". Select the update and if needed repeat.

After integrating all desired updates, hit "Next" to continue.

Again the same screen, but this time for integration of drivers. Point to .exe or .msi files with "Single Driver", point to a folder with "Multiple Driver Folder" if a driver contains more files. These options should cover every basic driver for Windows XP.

Please do not integrate into an image:

• Any driver for shared printers, these drivers are available at the share of the printer;
• Any driver not needed by all clients you will install with the image. Sometimes it would be easier to do, but keep in mind that pollution always starts with one driver.

Hit "Next" when you are satisfied and integrated every driver you wish to use in your image. In the next window, deselect all and click "OK".

About Components and their uses

This list contains all separate components in your Windows installation. Every component is removable, but pay attention to what you are deleting and how that affects other components. For instance: deleting all modem drivers but wanting to use the fax services would be a bit of a problem.

So what to save or delete from your image?

Well first up, think a bit about how we want to use this image. It is for VDI, so drivers are not a real issue, since every hardware component is VMWare default. Anything else is USB or otherwise external hardware and should always have an installation medium, or at least a website where drivers can be downloaded.

Every component carries a description when you select it. If something is in red, keep in mind those components are needed for dependencies, inside or outside the image. You cannot, for instance, delete Outlook Express. It is needed for Microsoft Outlook. This is also clearly stated in the window on the right.

The same goes for some networking components, which are somehow related to domain use. If you were to remove them, the computer can not authenticate to a domain. How those dependencies work and why they work like this are not relevant. Just focus on the fact that they do work like this and be aware of what you remove. As you can see in the bottom left, there are about 500 or more packages. Take your time. If you make a mistake here, there is no use for the image. So better to stare at this screen for an hour, than realize later that you accidentally removed something important.

Once you are satisfied with the removed components, click "Next" to continue to "Unattended".

Unattended settings

We don't want to watch an installation. Preferably we point to the image, point to a location and yell "Do it!". Unfortunately, Windows usually cuts that idea in half. The installation does a lot on it's own, but it does ask some questions. The worst part is that those questions are scattered throughout the entire installation, so you have to continually monitor progress.

Again, keep in mind we are creating an image for VDI. So in short:

We don't want a firewall, we don't want system restore (why would we). On the other tabs fill in what you know, what you don't want Windows to ask during setup. Hit "Next" twice to continue to "Tweaks"

Tweaks

Why make the same setting over and over again, while you could also set it once in your image? And there we have tweaks. Settings designed to make your life easier and Windows better.

In short these settings will not make your image smaller, but they can make your Windows faster. Just have a look around, everything is well documented and there is not a real chance of making your iso unusable. Do keep in mind that once you have created the iso, you can't really turn anything off that was on, or vice versa. So make sure you do it once and do it correctly.

Wrapping up

The moment you hit "Next" under the "Tweaks", nLite will start processing your settings and integrating everything into one installer package. This will take about 40 minutes to fully complete.

After that, you push "Next" and are able to make a bootable disk.

Mode: Create Image, Label: Windows

Push "Make ISO" to start the process and give a location where you want the ISO to be saved.

After that, push "Next" and "Finish" to complete all steps in nLite. You now have a bootable ISO-image, customized and made smaller, quicker and more pleasant to work with.