Is sysprep no longer useful for full removal of items including their install parts?

Can I or should I re-learn and apply sysprep methods to shrink the actual Disk size of a Windows 7 64 bit Professional installation?

Not just to turn things on or off or set policies or setup the system, solely for the purpose of never having installed certain items (in whole), including the ability to "turn them on"?

Historical:

As we all know, with XP, system would ASK during install if you wanted various things installed or not. Out of desperation prior to the existence of XPlite we as Users made use of sysprep to have an even more reduced install, because sysprep allowed us to exclude things. Because they were never installed ever, it worked pretty well.

With sysprep, we would create, then edit "unattended instalation scripts", even though we did not use them for unattended installs, we used them to set what program packages would be installed. The scripts would be called up from a Floppy disk, during a normal user install.

Historical:

My DVD of windows 7 64bit with SP1 did not ask to install or remove anything. And (as we know) everything is put on the disk installed or not, it can be "turned on".

I am asking to see if deployers install the system with the whole wad, even after spending efforts creating deployments with sysprep or other things I do not know about?

I have Windows 7 Professional, so I could have 2-3 features that I will probably need some day (versus home). But I don't run a website, have users, set up an FTP, or any of the features that a pro network admin might need, I am just a user.

Psycogeek

Posted 2011-09-25T10:04:19.747

Reputation: 8 067

Answers

you only need sysprep if you are moving an install to a dissimilar system - The usual use case is to mass deploy a single system image to systems that are not the same.

There's specialised tools for modifying install images pre-install or remastering - (though i've lost track - i used to use nlite with xp, and vlight for vista) - alternately slim down a running system by whatever means and simply image it .

Journeyman Geek

Posted 2011-09-25T10:04:19.747

Reputation: 119 122

Vlite, thanks i will see what they have going.

"Whatever means", you mean like deleting the stuff i will not ever need manually. I can do that, but the way it sets up it is 40,000 files in piles , and <3000 I need. – Psycogeek – 2011-09-25T10:36:58.283

1I'd assume if you want to use sysprep, you already have a system to your liking you want to replicate - how you do that is up to you. – Journeyman Geek – 2011-09-25T10:53:18.113

It is in the question. Before we used sysprep script on fresh XP install, to have Minimum install (as small as 200M) Just turn 1 to 0 in script. not to replicate or duplicate. Can sysprep (or something) be used in windows 7 to script NOT installing whole packages like it has worked for XP? (that was 10 years ago we did that work, my memory of it is limited, but I still have a script around here somewhere. – Psycogeek – 2011-09-25T11:00:34.050

as far as i know. no.sysprep is not used to customise installs - its used to to prepare an operating system for disk cloning and restoration via a disk image. you would use WAIK to automatically install anything you need. Neither of these will let you strip down an install however, or be useful in the scenario where you want to strip down a system.

– Journeyman Geek – 2011-09-25T11:05:26.943

thanks, i am getting somewhere. Vlite has some users testing it on 7, with a list of items that should work, and ramifications.

WAIK thanks, now I remember more, sysprep made an "unattended instalation script" Although we attended , and used it for the purpose of shrinking only. – Psycogeek – 2011-09-25T11:18:53.270

1ImageX in WAIK will let you strip down an install. Technically, ImageX will let you put anything you friggin want into a setup disk. – surfasb – 2011-09-25T12:12:27.597

Considering how cheap disk space is on consumer computers these days, the cost of the DVD alone is worth more than the disk space I would save by trimming the install size.

The biggest cost savings with sysprep is having all programs and settings configured and ready to go.

surfasb

Posted 2011-09-25T10:04:19.747

Reputation: 21 453

I know you didnt get 6K points by not answering the questions :-) Will it allow me to remove anything completely or not? – Psycogeek – 2011-09-25T10:24:05.720

2@Psycogeek: Yes. . . As an aside, you'll be surprised what people will upvote. – surfasb – 2011-09-25T10:49:50.837