Vista is tiny and FAST with Vlite

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mgo · #1 Post by **mgo** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 8:58 am

*Moderator: I am mentioning this product by name. Since it is donation ware, I assume that is ok.

I just finished installing Vista Biz with SP1 using Vlite to trim down the install ISO ahead of time.

Some features are not running, of course, but I made those choices during the setup.

My Vista installation is less than 10 gig, including all my programs, like MS Office 2007 & ACDsee photo app. (two fatties) I am not running any virtual memory since I have 3 gig of RAM on board. Non-Vlite installs of the same setup runs around 20 gig.

It's speedy as hell (as fast or faster than XP) and so far very stable with no BSODs or other silliness.

OS only was less than 5 gig. The ISO was a little over 1 gig.

Using Vlite requires some geeky skills, but I'm only slightly above average as a user. I was also required to re-activate my Tech Net downloaded distro of Vista. Automated phone activation was simple, no hard to understand Indian person. (gee, Microsoft did something right for a change!)

Windows Update works fine, when installing the OS with SP1 already intergrated in the distro.

Just passing along some good news about Vista for a change.

Trekk69 · #2 Post by **Trekk69** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 11:54 am

Thanks a lot.
I need to reload Vista Biz over the summer when school is done from my backup and than put on SP1.
I will give vlite a look at more closely.

SHoTTa35 · #3 Post by **SHoTTa35** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 12:41 pm

Well i'm running the normal Vista Business SP1 and Office 2007 SP1 and some smaller apps for my regular stuff and my install (without ACDsee) and i'm running at about 8.9GB so i don't see how one app is using 10GB more

I didn't do any tweaks and all that either, just regular install disc.

Anyways glad you got it working great now then

If you're happy then enjoy your system

mgo · #4 Post by **mgo** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 12:58 pm

SHoTTa35 wrote:Well i'm running the normal Vista Business SP1 and Office 2007 SP1 and some smaller apps for my regular stuff and my install (without ACDsee) and i'm running at about 8.9GB so i don't see how one app is using 10GB more I didn't do any tweaks and all that either, just regular install disc.

Anyways glad you got it working great now then If you're happy then enjoy your system

My, impressively small for a "regular" setup. I can't get close to that. Might try later, tho...now that I have Vista Biz with SP1 on a ISO from Tech Net. I like to mess with these things...

Sometimes I even get a little 'work' done, too.

torqueo · #5 Post by **torqueo** » Sat Jun 07, 2008 2:38 pm

Vista is fast for me, too.. and I didn't have to trim anything. Faster than XP, for sure.

asiafish · #6 Post by **asiafish** » Sat Jun 07, 2008 3:05 pm

My guess is that not using VM and disabling system restore (not sure if VLite does that) can easily save 10GB or more.

I have Vista 64 (Business) on a 4 GB RAM system with Office 2007 Enterprise and NOTHING DISABLED, and its only 21GB. That is with a 4GB swapfile, 4GB hiberfile and system restore active.

taob · #7 Post by **taob** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 10:19 pm

Yup, another vote for vLite 1.1.6 here. I had been running with a full retail install of Vista Ultimate on my T60p since last May or so. When SP1 came out, I decided then would be a good time to try out vLite's slipstreaming capabilities. Very, very straightforward procedure to create an automated installation ISO from my Microsoft media.

Now I have an install DVD that takes 22 minutes to bring the T60p from zero to the initial Administrator desktop, complete with SP1 and about six additional hotfixes already installed. After installing my usual plethora of Thinkvantage tools and other software (including Photoshop CS3, Lightroom 1.4.1 and 2.0 beta, OpenOffice, Firefox), total disk footprint is around 5.5 GB, plus 2 GB for hiberfil.sys and a separate 4 GB partition of swap.

On a 7200 rpm 200GB Hitachi, Vista boots in 24 seconds from the boot manager prompt to the desktop login prompt. Photoshop, OpenOffice, Firefox, etc. all need less than 5 seconds to startup from a cold boot.

sliverstorm · #8 Post by **sliverstorm** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 7:31 pm

I tried to vlite for days but no matter what I did, x64 or 32 versions, slip streaming sp1 always resulted in a boot failure error I couldn't fix.
I think it might be vlite's fault, it's still in development. I'm guessing
the bcd info gets messed up.
anyway, not interested in vlited vista w/ no sp1- it in itself is supposed to be worth quite a bit in terms of speed. I am hoping that
future releases of vlite fix this.

edit: although I suppose in retrospect, considering right after I gave
up my laptop started crashing and I discovered I had at least 32MB of
bad disk, it's possible slipstream+vliting was placing the boot file in
corrupt areas of the disk, hence the error.

Enigmatist · #9 Post by **Enigmatist** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 11:01 am

I'm very interested in this vLite vista. However, my thinkpad came with recovery partition of Vista Business 64-bit and I DONT have the DVD for 64-bit Vista so I cannot customize it like vLite suggests.

Does anyone know how to do this with the existing recovery partition that is built into thinkpads?

mini_g · #10 Post by **mini_g** » Wed Jul 02, 2008 2:07 pm

Enigmatist wrote:I'm very interested in this vLite vista. However, my thinkpad came with recovery partition of Vista Business 64-bit and I DONT have the DVD for 64-bit Vista so I cannot customize it like vLite suggests.

Does anyone know how to do this with the existing recovery partition that is built into thinkpads?

I have not dealt with vLite nor Vista myself, but with nLite, I believe that if the i386 (am unsure what the 64bit dir &/or Vista's is) directory is available, than a DVD can be created by using it.

sliverstorm · #11 Post by **sliverstorm** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:17 pm

you can download an ISO. It's not illegal. You have the right to use the software, can (from what I understand) download it straight from microsoft, and there is only 2 vista ISOs; x86 and x64. i.e. every version ships with the Ultimate install DVD. You will need the key from your current install though

RaysMD · #12 Post by **RaysMD** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 2:55 pm

I used vlite to slipstream sp1 to vista business x64. The final install dvd was 2.3gb. The total vista installed size with office 2007 was 12gb. That's a lot when compared to winxp pro sp3 which only used 6gb.

#13 Post by **carbon_unit** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 6:23 pm

sliverstorm wrote:you can download an ISO. It's not illegal. You have the right to use the software, can (from what I understand) download it straight from microsoft, and there is only 2 vista ISOs; x86 and x64. i.e. every version ships with the Ultimate install DVD. You will need the key from your current install though

Got a link to this? Is it available to the general public or just technet members?

RaysMD · #14 Post by **RaysMD** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 9:31 pm

link used to be available from digitalriver, but microsoft has shut that down in the past few weeks.

only way to get it is from the torrent sites. Do a little search for the Lenovo OEM cd-keys and "oem cert" then you can reinstall it on your thinkpad without any problems.

#15 Post by **carbon_unit** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 6:31 am

RaysMD wrote:link used to be available from digitalriver, but microsoft has shut that down in the past few weeks.

only way to get it is from the torrent sites. Do a little search for the Lenovo OEM cd-keys and "oem cert" then you can reinstall it on your thinkpad without any problems.

That does not sound like it is legal. If that is the case this thread is heading for a lockdown as per forum rules. We do not duscuss warez on this board.
I need a free, publicly available download link from Microsoft to save this thread from being locked.

lew2 · #16 Post by **lew2** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:54 am

Not sure there currently is one.

Here's the info on what had been available: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=240320

RaysMD · #17 Post by **RaysMD** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 8:18 am

actually, OEM vista .iso files were available at one point through a non-warez site, but microsoft has now taken them down.

so, the only way to get vista is to burn your own files or create your own dvd. The files are preloaded on the new Thinkpads. If not, then they're on the recovery dvds.

Vista is tiny and FAST with Vlite

Vista is tiny and FAST with Vlite

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