Submitted by taggart on Sat, 03/06/2010 - 17:19
To get rid of all the unwanted parts of windows 7, I started developing a Test Server with Windows Embedded. Version 2011 is based on Windows 7 and reached recently RC-state. AFAIK, it will be renamed to "Windows 7 Embedded" with the official launch. Currently I'm testing different configurations on various machines and the development is still in progress. But until know I can say, that it seems like it shoud be possible to reduce the size of the OS to about 1-1.5GB. Please let me know, if there are are other developers out there, working or interested on the same thing! It really would be nice to get in contact with you!
Thank you Chris, for sharing your knowledge and for all the time and patience you must have spent on this.
Christoph
Why would I need a bloated OS like Windows 7 Ultimate, Professional or Home Premium with all kinds of features, capabilities and complexities to play music files.
According to the Microsoft website Windows 7 Starter is simpler and easier to use. Windows 7 Starter puts less between you and what you want to do—less waiting, less clicking, less hassle connecting to networks. Windows 7 Starter combines the latest in reliability and responsiveness with the familiarity and compatibility of Windows.
I assume that it is unfortunate that in the United States, Windows 7 Starter is only available on small notebook PCs (netbooks).
I also assume bloated OS is just one of the reasons that some users find Linux and stripped down XP to sound better.
You can get tiny win7 through unsavory ways. It fits on a normal cd.
@IamKirk
What "unsavory ways" are you talking about? Is there any "documentation"?
It's just some project where a group took out a bunch of the bloat (and some good parts unfortunately) to make win7 fit on a single cd. I think it's just called TinyWin7. They also had a TinyXP.