Windows XP Tiny Edition

For some of you, this may be a kind of new thing to play with, or maybe you have tried it before. Windows XP Tiny is built by carefully and unofficially removing useless components that come installed together with Windows XP.

Some say it is designed for gamers while some says it is designed to run on older systems which have limited RAM or disk spaces. Of course, there are different Tiny XP created for different purposes. Anyway, it's up to the creator to create and decide which components to remove.

If you would like to create your version of windows; Windows King Kong, MyWindows, Treasure Windows, Compact Windows, Speedy Windows; there are two recommended softwares with opposite functions but same goal, which is to create a tiny version of Windows XP.

XPLite (www.litepc.com)

Not every software comes free. This costs from $39.95. It allows you to remove any Windows components as well as reinstall the components provided you have the Windows CD.

The software is divided into two parts, listing all the windows components. Part A showing the components which are safe to remove, and Part B showing the components of 'You have to know what you are doing'.

I have installed the program on my gf's laptop. Installation was smooth and no problems whatsoever. The interface is simple to understand and I carefully selected the components from Part A. After a restart, Windows XP prompted for missing files and missing components. Bad enough, though. The day before, I popped in my Windows XP SP2 CD and started to add in all the components that I had removed previously. Amazingly, the laptop showed Black screen upon restart. I believed it's worst than bluescreen.

BSOD - Blue Screen of Death

BlSOD - Black Screen of Death

The seriousness of these scenarios is that, the user will have to reinstall the OS.

* I refer it as BSMD - Black Screen Means Death, in my term, not knowing the existence of BlSOD

nLiteOS (www.nliteos.com)

Here comes the freeware. It offers the user to create an ISO image out of the existing Windows XP which can then be burnt into CD. During the process, user can choose to remove or add Windows components, Windows Updates and create Unattended setup as well.

I have yet to allocate my time for this software. However, I had downloaded the popular version of Tiny XP called Windows XP Beast Edition. I had jz burnt it to CD yesternite and will try it on my gf's laptop tonight. Hopefully it works. I don't actually mean the XP but the CD coz I got error message after burning the image into the CD.

Windows Embedded

Lastly, it's the Windows Embedded. This is an official version from Microsoft which enables user to componentize the Windows. I believe it aims to provide flexibility for developers as well as corporate use. It offers a trial version of 120 days. Unless I am very free, I will leave it first.