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I need to install Windows on 1GB of space.
DHS Odium
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Can this be done?
A preface: I often work remotely, so I have a company issued laptop. This is the only laptop I own, I got rid of my personal one after college, and I just have a desktop. Now, I still like mobility in certain areas, like bringing the laptop down to the TV area and such. The problem I have is that it's slow. Specs-wise, the computer shouldn't be slow, I think it's the software the company has installed, various security agents and such. Anyways, it takes a long time to boot, and is sluggish in other areas. I also don't like using a company laptop with whatever kind of tracking software they might have on here for personal use.
So, I can boot from a USB drive. I have a couple of 1GB flash drives lying around, so I'd like to use one of those. This is a Dell Latitude D630, it has a Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, and integrated graphics (X3100).
I have considered, and tried Live Linux versions on this, with a few issues. One, is the wireless card. I tried a couple distros, the only one that supported the wireless out of the box was gOS, and by extension, I imagine Ubuntu would. I don't want a Live CD though, I want an actual installation onto this drive. I prefer trying out XP.
Now, I know there is nLite to slim down XP, I'm not sure if I want to go through this route.
I do have access to MSDN, and I want Windows on here, and I don't really care which version as long as it's still supported and would run whatever small programs I might want to install. Again, I know 1GB isn't a whole lot of space to work with, I don't want 98 on here, or other old stuff. Since i have MSDN, it looks like my choices are Windows 2000, XP, and Windows 2003. I prefer either XP or 2003, but 2000 might be serviceable. My question is, can I install one of this with the regular ISO/Disc sans any kind of tweaking beyond removing stuff I don't want? Can I get like a 500Mb installation?
So, what are people's recommendations, should I try for the Windows side, or is there a magic small, modern, Linux distro that will automatically support all the hardware, especially wireless, and can be fully installed on a 1GB stick and booted from, preferably with Gnome?
A preface: I often work remotely, so I have a company issued laptop. This is the only laptop I own, I got rid of my personal one after college, and I just have a desktop. Now, I still like mobility in certain areas, like bringing the laptop down to the TV area and such. The problem I have is that it's slow. Specs-wise, the computer shouldn't be slow, I think it's the software the company has installed, various security agents and such. Anyways, it takes a long time to boot, and is sluggish in other areas. I also don't like using a company laptop with whatever kind of tracking software they might have on here for personal use.
So, I can boot from a USB drive. I have a couple of 1GB flash drives lying around, so I'd like to use one of those. This is a Dell Latitude D630, it has a Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, and integrated graphics (X3100).
I have considered, and tried Live Linux versions on this, with a few issues. One, is the wireless card. I tried a couple distros, the only one that supported the wireless out of the box was gOS, and by extension, I imagine Ubuntu would. I don't want a Live CD though, I want an actual installation onto this drive. I prefer trying out XP.
Now, I know there is nLite to slim down XP, I'm not sure if I want to go through this route.
I do have access to MSDN, and I want Windows on here, and I don't really care which version as long as it's still supported and would run whatever small programs I might want to install. Again, I know 1GB isn't a whole lot of space to work with, I don't want 98 on here, or other old stuff. Since i have MSDN, it looks like my choices are Windows 2000, XP, and Windows 2003. I prefer either XP or 2003, but 2000 might be serviceable. My question is, can I install one of this with the regular ISO/Disc sans any kind of tweaking beyond removing stuff I don't want? Can I get like a 500Mb installation?
So, what are people's recommendations, should I try for the Windows side, or is there a magic small, modern, Linux distro that will automatically support all the hardware, especially wireless, and can be fully installed on a 1GB stick and booted from, preferably with Gnome?
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Also, if the tracking software you think they have on the laptop is any good, it will work no matter what you're doing, as long as the computer is on and connected to a network. You'd have to physically remove the hard drive to get the tracking software to stop working.
I'm not going to help you here though, as I work in IT for my company and if I found someone like you I'd be going to my boss, your boss, and you'd be getting in a lot of trouble for doing this.
the software we have will work as long as the hard drive is physically installed in the drive, and you don't do a "write 0's to every sector" format of the drive.
And i have personally tested booting a linux live CD, and the trackign software still reported in.
Laptop hard drives aren't hard to remove at all, most of the time.
Again, doing this is likely 100% against company policy, and you could be subject to disciplinary action if you do so and get caught. Is a bit of convienence to you worth your job? And yes, it is very possible to lose your job over something like this. Someone in my dad's company lost his job there because he was fucking around with the company issued computers too much.
re: Swapping the harddrive, that sounds even worse, I'd rather not open this up. I can do it, I've done it on other machines, but it defeats the purpose of just grabbing the laptop and plugging a stick in and booting it while I'm watching TV.
Also, I do have external hard drives, including a nice 40GB laptop drive in an enclosure, I know I could go this route, but I don't want extra bulk that I have to have attached.
I'm not 100% sure either. I know that wile in linux it didn't report the same data as it did in windows(in windows I can see things like installed software, HDD space, external/internal IP, and a bunch of other goodies) with linux it only reported on the external IP address.
I do plan to, I'm in the market for a netbook. As for messing with the computer too much, I don't consider changing a boot option, and booting from a Live CD, bypassing even the possibility of messing up anything on the HDD, to be subject to disciplinary action. I know you may disagree, or think my company disagrees, but that isn't the point of this thread.
To get back on track, but in a different way, I would still like to know if I can get XP or 2003 onto 1GB of space. Not just for this laptop, but other computers as well (I have parts lying around that can be put together for a full computer, sans a harddrive).
I didn't say it wasn't. I don't give a rat fuck if he gets fired for screwing around with a company laptop. Shit, I had my job threatened because Windows Automatic Updates installed IE7 on my PC. They blamed me.
I'm just giving him a solution.
What about a standard installation, is there anyway to do it with the standard CDs, like remove services during installation, I remember you could do that on older Windows. Or is the customization pretty much taken out now?
You have to use nLite.
Start from a barebones SP1 or SP2 CD. Don't use any default settings. Read every page and uncheck everything you think you won't need. I did this for my 4 gig EEE laptop and let a lot more things through than they recommended, and I got the previously mentioned 600 meg.
EDIT: There are no options on a normal XP CD install. You can't do it without third party software and a lot of time to go through everything and decide what you want to cut, because inevitably someone else's barebone settings will leave you missing something you wanted.
This thread has run it's course, thanks.
probably some scheme involving modified network card firmware or something, then.
Regarding the monitoring software discussion - it's probably monitoring hardware you're dealing with here. TPM hardware/software combo on the machines I'm working with can phone home as soon as it picks up an external link. Without the software half of the equation it can only tell you uptime, OS, and local/remote IP - but if the TPM software is installed, it's basically root access to your machine.
That said, we're not hardcore about it unless we have a reason, so there's lots of people with STEAM installed on their work laptops. :P
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
The tracking software does not run on the laptop. It runs on the networking gear of the corporate network that you connected the laptop to, or a server on said network, while you had it booted it into Linux. Otherwise, I'm sorry, but what you're saying does not in any way make sense. It makes zero sense to install tracking software on the laptop, since once it's in the hands of your users you've effectively lost control of the software.
The tracking software does run on the laptop. then reports back to a server. I'm sorry, but I'm the one who installed the software, so I think I know what I'm talking about.
This will probably take about 2 or 3 days of your life to get to a working stage, and whether or not it will actually work for you is a toss-up. It almost certainly, absolutely will not work in a computer/laptop that does not have a hard drive (search those forums for 7B) as Windows needs to detect a physical drive during the install for some reason.
I've also heard that their are problems with using the memory stick on another computer separate from the one you installed it on.
But if you do go this route, good luck sir, and have patience and plenty of blank CDs on hand! Be sure to get HP's USB Formatting Tool as you will be using it a lot.
Can you at least link us to the software, so we can read about this great new technology that works when you don't access the drive it's on in any way?
I mean, we could use some clarification. Does it only report in once you boot back to that drive? If I'm running Windows off a flash drive, for example, and I check my processes and services, am I going to see the software running off the unused hard drive? I assume it's reporting in over the network, so what if I use a USB network card and connect a different way?
And that would make sense, I'm just curious to actually see it and how it does it.
Non-technical version:
http://www.absolute.com/products-core-technology.asp
That's probably what wunderbar's company is using, but if they can bypass it by zeroing the drive, they're not taking it far enough and need to use the BIOS/TPM level solution as well.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
This is a great link. However, I'd recommend against using a flash drive as they wear out after so many writes. You can get a small HDD & external enclosure for pretty cheap.