Windows 98 on CD

Step Three: Clean Up Windows

This is just a list of files, and types of files to delete in order to free up lots of space. These documents do take up real estate.  Just think that my WindowsXP help directory has 40 MB of help files! 

a.       Delete help files ( .hlp .cnt .chm and .gid) and help executables

b.      Delete legacy type files such as winfile.exe (this program, for example, provides a windows 3.1 shell interface).

c.       delete unnecessary .inf files (mdm*.inf – modem drivers: there are lots of them; network drivers begin with an n and are also easily distinguishable)

d.      delete all multimedia files (*.wav *.bmp *.cur *.ani)

e.       Reduce Fonts to minimum Here’s my fonts:

f.        Kill unnecessarily windows folders

a.       %root%/windows/web

b.      There are numerous folders which can be deleted altogether.

g.       Trial and error – you can reduce necessary files down to around 1000 this way. Remember to rename and not delete, that way you can fix the mistakes.

h.       Remove Unnecessary drivers. 

a.       Note: if you don’t need open gl support, delete things like nvopengl32.dll

b.      Remove .mid support – who needs that stuff, anyway?

i.         Remove unnecessary shortcuts (unneeded send to extensions, shellnew, etc)

j.        Remove unnecessary control panel applets

a.       After your internet settings(i.e. DUN, etc.) are setup, you can delete the applet – keep the original somewhere that you can access it later if you want.

b.      Don’t delete appwiz.cpl – it does a lot more than hardware detection!!!  Making shortcuts just won’t work if you do this.

k.      Use resource hacker on explorer.exe – remove the shutdown menu (this will help you avoid the temptation of restarting the computer, which, after all is running from the CD, will remove all temporary modifications)

Since you would never really want to hard reboot the system, Create Desktop restart shortcut for these:

Logoff:  windows\RUNDLL32.EXE SHELL32.dll,SHExitWindowsEx 0

Restart explorer:

windows\RUNDLL32.EXE SHELL32.dll,SHExitWindowsEx –1

Restart Windows:

windows\RUNDLL.EXE windows\SYSTEM\USER.EXE,ExitWindowsExec