Developer puts Windows 7 on a crash diet, drops it to down to 69 MB Stripping Windows to the bare essentials is a favorite hobby among enthusiasts, especially as Microsoft continues loading its OS with unwanted bloat. The latest achievement is Windows 7 being reduced to 69 MB. A user going by the handle of @XenoPanther on X (formerly Twitter) has published a file list. "This was more of a fun …
Don't forget, the original Macintosh had one 400k disk and 128k RAM.
Granted, it never should have shipped that way -- that was way too minimal for even that day -- two floppies were pretty well accepted as minimum for non-home computers and desirable for home systems, but it did bring up a GUI and could run an application.
A few tens of Mb are enough to get the (7) OS running. Maybe not much else, but it (apparently) runs.
Every single byte on top of an OS beyond that needs to be for a valid purpose. And of course that means tons of stuff. But tons of stuff that should have a use case for the users. Because an OS really only has one purpose, to be a way to let the users use programmes and peripherals.
The OS and a GUI exist to present the programme to the user and identify the core controls, so that the user can interact with the good* stuff as easily as possible- arguably with security functions.
Once the OS starts to control what the users do, present content they didn't request or monitor use without consent it is doing something that shouldn't be in an OS.
*( at least in theory)
Mostly completely off-topic... but I am bored.
So in Florida it always gets frigid JUST and ONLY for Halloween. I've been here 60+ years and I remember my mother being sad that kids had to wrap up their costumes in jackets because of the cold.
It was 85 Wednesday and today (Halloween Friday) it dropped to 52 at 7pm. It's now past 10pm and it's gone back up to 62. Screw you, trick-or-treaters!
And speaking of jackets, I'm writing an Android app to track the comfort of my various motorcycle gloves, jackets, pants, and suits, temperature wise. I don't have a car and I want help deciding what to wear, so I can avoid winging it and freezing my ass off. It's got a block for each degree from 40-100 and I can say freezing/cold/comfortable/hot/roasting for each one. I'm mainly trying to remember if the thin and comfortable jacket can be worn instead of the bulky one with the shitty zipper, that sort of thing.
I tried a spreadsheet, but I haven't yet found a mobile one that doesn't really suck, and I want it to be on my phone so I can do on-the-fly updates.
"In °C, for the civilised world, 52°F, 62°F => 11°C, 17°C."
Those are nice temperatures to go dog walking in the UK, if there is no sun to make it too 'warm'.
17°C is too warm if there is sun and your dog runs and chases non-stop !!!
[Border collies don't have an 'Off' switch, at least mine doesn't :) ]
Might need a coat if it gets to 5°C ... unless you are from Newcastle then it will STILL be T-shirt weather !!! <jk>
:)
"[Border collies don't have an 'Off' switch, at least mine doesn't :) ]"
Mine is pretty chill most of the time, but he definitely has a built in clock. He knows the cat's feeding time, and starts rounding them up for their feed, and then heads outside. He also knows that his walkie time is around 7PM so starts getting all whiny and such outside our daughters bedroom.
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One of the war stories I tell colleagues who are fresh out of school is when I was a beta tester for QNX's DHCP client. Beta? More like an alpha. They were a bit surprised when I told them their client did not handle a DHCP server that was in charge of a subnet that spanned an entire class A network. IIRC I received a private build straight from one of the developers.
Happy days.
These days I have to nudge some poor support engineer for weeks to troubleshoot an issue, and then wait another two months for Azure engineers to deploy a fix. And indeed, the latest fix is related to their internal DNS service. And we pay big bucks for the privilege of testing their stuff.
Then why not just run DOS?
Because the Windows kernel is a well designed, modern (ish), pre-emptive, multi threaded, multi CPU OS kernel, with competent security primitives, a well defined driver layer, decent hardware abstraction and a concept of 'personalities' that allows it to appear as various different ABIs to running applications.
Dos is a collection of 16 bit x86 interrupt handlers, an executable format, a program loader and the promise from your app that it'll play nice. (As you're only running one).
I'm still waiting for mictosoft to do what so many other developers do. During install a pop up asks if you want this or that option. I don't need the 100+ language files, only one. I don't need or want cortana, copilot, or onedrive. I don't need VR, VM, or who knows how many other unnecessary bits of bloat-/spy-ware mictosoft foists upon us. And if I do need any of those POS bits, there's always the internet.
That'll never happen as Windows is about as modularised as a plate of spaghetti.
I still think it should, but needs some heavy lobbying. I've been messing around with Win11 to try and de-cruft it, and watching energy usage as I do it. Which got me thinking about a Win11 Eco edition that does that for me. Which given all the Scopes for emission reductions might be used to apply pressure. So I shaved around 100W off my PC, and if that energy use/waste was bundled into MS's emissions, then it could result in enough energy savings to power a few DCs.
Currently though MS externalises those costs and is determined to increase them by continuing to push bloatware like Copilot that few users outside MS seem to actually want.
I still think it should, but needs some heavy lobbying. I've been messing around with Win11 to try and de-cruft it, and watching energy usage as I do it.
I've finally taken my own advice, paid 15 quid for a 3 install license of Server 2025 from one of those VLK resellers (basically the same UI as 11 24H2), loving it so far as it's much more cruft free.
It's only been a few days, but other than the integrated Intel NIC on my motherboard not being supported out of the box it's been fine. Plus I still have 2 installs left. If you're not comfortable setting up Windows I'd avoid it, but if you're not scared of the NT era 'Add a new user' dialog it's well worth the cash.
Also... I got the joy of discovering the 'Don't allow using a Microsoft Account to sign on to windows' option in the group policy editor when I was turning off the requirement to press CTRL-ALT-DEL to log on.
That'll never happen as Windows is about as modularised as a plate of spaghetti.
Windows is very modularised. You can use tools like DISM to enable/disable various features. Also, minor yearly feature updates are shipped as disabled features that then get activated by a later update. It's how features are A/B tested in the beta channels.
MS absolutely 100% could do it, they just don't.
<Wanders off having flashbacks to the 95/NT setups and their 'Laptop/Desktop/Minimal' configurations>
How do you know they'll never be used?
In this modern world it doesn't seem that uncommon, and the rise of India and China is only going to increase this.
I don't speak or read a word of anything other than English, but it's not uncommon to encounter foreign scripts on the web. I'd rather they render than not personally.
So you would, by choice, choose to not be able to render portions of the modern web?
That's why they should be made available, even installed with the OS at first use, if the users want.
If the users want?
How would that setup experience go?
Most people using computers are using computers as a tool, they're not into IT or IT professionals.
How would you offer that choice to the user? What would you phrase it like? How would you present it in a way that allowed them to make an objective informed choice?
'Do you want the possibility that some websites or documents won't render correctly?' How many people would answer 'Yes' to that.
But making them compulsory and even removing the option to uninstall them is a different matter
Yes, it's a sensible choice in the modern world. Being able to render text is a fairly basic and, arguably, essential function of a modern OS.
As someone who's had to support 'users' over the years, adding complexity and unnecessary options just lead to confusion in my experience. (I once had someone who'd trashed their windows install by just going into the windows folder and deleting files they 'didn't like the look of'!)
I'm an IT professional and I'm not 100% confident that I would make the correct choice at install for every component of a modern OS. That's something most users aren't equipped to make correct descisions about so they'll just accept the defaults and be annoyed at the complexity presented.
Also, my HD is large enough now that I don't worry about the extra space. For context, when XP was released 20G HDs were commonplace and a standard install of windows took about 1.5 gig, or about a 13th of the common drive size. Windows 11 installs into about 11 gig, and 512GB drives now are considered low end, however that's still only a 46th. These days I'm not going to worry about a few extra fonts.
When asked, most people will claim they want the choices, but often they don't... they just want a coffee.
"Virtually nothing can run due to critical missing files such as common dialog boxes and common controls."
So, is it really a viable operating system then if basic functions are not functional.
This in turn begs the question - what are the critical functions of ANY modern operating system ??
I can think of things like :
Core tools so that you can move around the OS and get stuff done.
I note that this list does not include things like:
Then you flip it on its head. If an OS is what gets things done, then an Arduino with FreeRTOS is also an operating system of sorts and thats running in 256K or so.
Services ('daemons') don't (can't) use any of that stuff. An OS without them is suitable for many server-side tasks.
And, regarding DOS: nothing against DOS, but it's a different API, and is pretty much limited to single-tasking.
This in turn begs the question - what are the critical functions of ANY modern operating system ??
There's a wider question too, that probably varies by age... what is an operating system.
I'm in my late 40s, and was a computer nerd in my childhood... so to me an operating system has always been the abstraction between the programs and the hardware and storage. In order to make your new purchase initially of some use most OSs came with some software too.
For example, DOS was bundled with a program to format disks, or edit files.. these were bundled utilities. Windows had software to find and start programs (progman), and to change settings (the control panel).
Nowadays an OS is what many people my age would consider an OS plus a load of bundled software to make it useful.. and by that I mean things like 'Explorer' and an internet browser.
You can see this distinction in arguments around things like if early Windows was a graphical shell running on top of DOS.
It was, but many people misunderstand what DOS and Windows were in those days.
DOS was a 70s era operating system, essentially just a collection of 16 bit interrupt handlers, a file format, an executable format and a mechanism for starting programs. There was no 32 bit stuff, or memory protection or processes... once you were running you could do what you liked, including switching into protected mode or even overwriting DOS completely if you desired. (This is how LOADLIN worked to boot early Linux kernels). Later on many utilities used this power for doing 'clever stuff', such as providing multitasking.
This is also what Windows did from the 386 days in protected mode, all the 32 bit stuff was implemented by Windows as DOS is only 16 bit... however if you called a 16 bit DOS function you were back in DOS. If you loaded a TSR in DOS (a DOS driver) and it hooked one of those functions it would get executed... just like any other DOS program. (Raymond Chen covers this in his article where he misunderstands bootloaders., to quote: "MS-DOS served two purposes in Windows 95.[...]It acted as the 16-bit legacy device driver layer."
Well, of course it did... it's a 16 bit OS. ;)
LOADLIN is a bootloader, it loads an OS in to memory and hands over complete control of the machine to the OS... which often then overwrites the bootloader to save memory. Windows doesn't do this to DOS.
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