Minimzing/Optimizing Fresh Install of Windows 7

[Heliocentrical]

For my new build I plan on doing a fresh install of Windows 7. But before I do I want to do as much as I can to make it as minimal and optimized as possible since Windows 7 comes with a lot of bloat by default.

 

I've been looking at this software called NTLite. All you need to do is extract all the files from your Windows 7 ISO, Launch NTLite, point NTLite to the directory of the extracted files, choose which files you want to remove and then NTLite will create a new ISO Image for you.

 

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If anyone has any other suggestions I would greatly appreciate it.

[BTGBullseye]

I'd start by making sure to disable by default any services you aren't going to use, and do a lot of research into the files and settings before you disable/delete anything.

 

Also, make sure you slipstream in any updates available that don't include the GWX crap. (it'll help a lot)

[Zelpa]

If you're going through all that effort just to minimise the footprint of Windows 7 why not just install some minimalist Linux distro and use WINE or a virtual machine if you really need to run Windows programs?

[BTGBullseye]

Because Wine sucks for playing games... It's moody, clunky, and does significantly impact framerates on the few games it can run.

[Zelpa]

Because Wine sucks for playing games... It's moody, clunky, and does significantly impact framerates on the few games it can run.

 

Using a virtual machine and GPU passthrough you can get almost native FPS.

[Heliocentrical]

Using a virtual machine and GPU passthrough you can get almost native FPS.

If there's a Virtualization / GPU passthrough for dummies guide let me know. I would love to know how to do that. But I haven't found any simple tutorials for it. I've used Linux before but virtualization looks like it's beyond my scope in terms of skill.

 

Edit: Well I found a guide and honestly Virtualization doesn't seem worth it for the giant pain in the ass it is to get running. I'll stick with my original plan and spare myself the headache.

 

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[BTGBullseye]

When the tutorial includes a suggestion to recompile the OS, it's not for the average user. lol

[Heliocentrical]

When the tutorial includes a suggestion to recompile the OS, it's not for the average user. lol

Also requires you to look up obscure technical terms like IOMMU that even Intel's ARK database doesn't list, support 2 discrete GPUs that are not in anyway similar and have 16 GBs of RAM. I can see why virtualization hasn't become popular as it seems highly impractical.

[BTGBullseye]

IOMMU isn't really as obscure as it may seem, it's just not important enough to put on a spec sheet since only about 0.0001% of users will ever even think about something that requires it outside of custom business machines and very expensive custom gaming rigs. (and those machines aren't built by people that would ever use ARK as a primary source for CPU specs)