/michael-pass.com

nlite is a very easy program to use. the only potential complicated part will be deciding which components to remove and which services to enable/disable.

when you first open the program, choose a language and click next

the next screen will ask you where the copy of windows is you want to edit, choose the cd or dvd and click next

after the windows version is imported you want to tweak you are presented with another screen -

as you can see, you can change the following:

• service pack
• hot-fixes, add-ons and update packs
• drivers
• components
• unattended
• options
• tweaks
• bootable iso

now you can click on each category to make changes, you can select a couple or select all of them. i selected all of them so i could see what each area gave me options to do.

the first three (service pack, hot-fixes, add-ons and update packs and drivers) allow you to slipstream these items into the bootable iso. so you will need these items in advance in order to slipstream them in.

under components, you can edit the following-

• applications
• drivers
• hardware support
• keyboards
• languages
• multimedia
• network
• operating system options
• services
• directories

i will not go into detail on each of the above items, i will let you look through each one and decide what is necessary and what is not.

under unattended, you can set personal settings in advance so you dont have to input them later, for example the users, cd key, regional settings, desktop themes, etc.

under options you will find a lot of useful system options. you can change the profiles path here, the temp folder and even the windows path.

tweaks is where you will find the following -
you can change the folder behavior, start menu behavior, and most other “look and feel” settings here. there are also good options and settings for sysadmins here as well.

• boot and shutdown
• desktop
• explorer
• internet explorer
• my computer
• network
• performace
• privacy
• security
• start menu
• taskbar
• visual effects

the last option is to convert your changes to a bootable iso and then burn it onto a disc. you can also create a folder of additional files to add to the cd.

i am working on using a program called nliteos.  its awesome.  so far i have completely changed my entire windows xp media center iso.  when i am done tweaking everything i will install it on my laptop and maybe will use windows on a more regular basis.  the problem is, that windows has so many security vulnerabilities, it scares the hell out of me.

so far i have taken out the additonal languages, changed the startup processes, removed all the different keyboard support, removed all the help files, embeded the windows key into the iso, embeded the specific drivers for my laptop into the iso and removed unnecessary programs (ie – msn explorer, messenger, outlook express, etc)