rickatnight11.com

Introduction

I recently bought one of Dell’s new Mini 9 netbooks as my girlfriend’s Christmas present.  To save some cash I got it with Ubuntu pre-installed.  If this were my machine I’d just keep Ubuntu on there, but she will almost certainly hate it.  So, this guide is intended for people who don’t have Windows XP installed from the factory, so we don’t have that nice folder with all the drivers to port over to Vista.  Of course a lot of this process applies to anyone who wants Vista on the Mini 9, so I’m happy for anyone to get some help.

The guy over at http://dellmini9.blogspot.com has already documented his Mini 9 experience.  He’s gotten Vista (and now even a beta of Windows 7) running on his machine, and his site has a lot of great tips.  I will do my best to combine the tips I found useful from that site with this particular process.  His install was from XP so he was able to skip a few steps.  Please add any comments for any mistakes I will certainly make.  I’ll do my best to update the guide to accommodate for as many situations as possible.  Read on for the guide…

Update: My girlfriend loves the Mini 9 (although I’m pretty sure she was expecting it after all my hints.)  Go Dell!

Required

• Dell Mini 9 (duh)
• Another computer with a Windows operating system (preferably Vista)
• USB Flash drive (at least 2GB, although that’s assuming you are stripping the install with vLite…if not you’ll need a 4GB drive)  If enough people express interest in an alternative method I will write a guide for installing Vista over the network.  Flash drive prices are plummeting with the growing popularity flash chips (due mostly to solid state drives) so a 4GB drive isn’t all that expensive anymore.  Still, network installs can be easier if set up correctly and are a damn fun accomplishment to have under your belt.
• Windows Vista CD/DVD/ISO
• vLite (optional)

Step 1 – Prepare USB Flash Drive

These instructions I pulled from http://dellmini9.blogspot.com/2008/09/no-dvd-rom-no-worries.html but cleaned up for easier reading.

1. Insert the flash drive into your Windows machine and back up anything from the flash drive that you wanted to keep.  We’re going to reformat it.
2. Open up a command prompt.
3. Type diskpart and press Enter.  After a second you should have the prompt DISKPART>
4. Type list disk.  A list of your connected hard drives will appear.  Make sure you see your flash drive on the list.  In the example below my 4GB flash drive is Disk 2.


Command - DISKPART

5. Type select disk 2 but change the disk number to whatever your drive is.  Make sure you get this right.  If you continue with these steps on the wrong disk you’ll end up erasing all of that drive’s contents.  Be careful.
6. Type clean.  It should only take a few seconds to clean.
7. Now type create partition primary.  This command should complete almost immediately.
8. Type select partition 1
9. Type active
10. Type format fs=fat32 to format the flash drive.  This took about 6 minutes on my drive.
11. Lastly, type assign and then exit
12. Format complete! You can close the command prompt

Step 2 – Reduce Vista Installation (Optional)

The Dell Mini 9 comes with a solid state harddrive which is a blessing and a curse.  On the plus side you get better read/write/seek speeds, improved battery life, and better shock protection than rotating platter hard drives.  Unfortunately it’s still an expensive technology, and the price-per-gig of solid state drives is much higher.  The Mini 9s come with a 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, and now even a 32GB drive.  I have the 16GB drive and you definitely want as much space as you can get with this smaller drives.  The software vLite will take Vista Install media and provide tons of customization and stripping options.  You can skip this step and go straight to loading Vista on the flash drive, but I would highly recommend it.

These instructions cover the process I followed.  I would definitely like to develop this process to obtain the smallest install size possible, though, so please post any tips you come across and I’ll keep checking the dellmini9 blog for more useful tidbits.

1. Download and install vLite v1.2 Final
2. vLite requires the WAIK to run, but after installing it and restarting vLite still said that I needed it.  The fix for me was to download the Windows Imaging Driver and extract the three files into the vLite Program Files directory.  For more vLite installation help please visit their forum and post your situation in the comments here.  If there is a common problem I’ll add the solution to the guide.
3. Insert your Vista DVD/CD or mount your Vista ISO.  I used an ISO but the steps should be the same.  (Make sure you have at least 4-5GB of space on your computer.)
4. Load up vLite and browse to your disk drive with the Vista installation media
5. vLite will ask you where to put the files on your hard drive to modify them.  Create a directory wherever is easiest for you.  I chose C:\vista


Vista Destination Folder

6. After you click OK vLite will proceed to copy all of the files from the Vista installation media to your hard drive.  This will take a few minutes.  After copying the files vLite will analyze your install quickly and show you it’s information.  Go ahead and read that if you want and then press Next
7. vLite will give you a list of Tasks that it can run on your Vista install files.  Since this guide is meant for decreasing the install size I will only focus on Components, Tweaks, and Unattended setup, since these Tasks will let you strip the install to the bare minimum.  Check those three Tasks.  Integration is always something interesting to look into as you can slipstream service packs and updates into your install, but since it means a bigger initial install we’ll ignore it for now.  We don’t need to create a Bootable ISO since we will just be copying these files to the flash drive instead of burning a CD/DVD, so we’ll ignore that too.  Go ahead and click next.
8. The next screen will have a pop up asking what features or applications that you plan to use.  This will be up to you but this is the configuration I used:


vLite Compatibility

I didn’t check anything in the Applications tab so I didn’t bother posting a screenshot.  As far as I know this tab merely checks the programs on your current machine that rely on Vista system files so that you don’t remove something that those programs really need.  Since this install isn’t even meant for this computer anyway I found no use for this tab.

I intentionally left System Restore off because it uses so much space.  With a 16GB hard drive (or less) I’m not too worried about losing anything.  It’s not meant to be a main machine.  I don’t need it wasting precious space just duplicating my data in a backup.

9. Click OK and you will now be able to further customize the install by choosing components to remove.  This is also up to your preferred configuration, but I will post mine:


Removing Accessories

I removed Speech Support because never once have I felt the urge to “talk” my computer through anything.  That’s just 450MB of wasted space to me.



Removing Drivers

I removed all display adapters except for Intel’s since I know the Mini 9 has an Intel chip.  I have done the install without scrubbing with vLite, however, and the disk didn’t have the drivers.  I had to download them through Windows Update anyway so you can probably even remove those as well, but just to be safe I included them.

I removed the Ethernet and modem drivers since I know that my Vista disk doesn’t have them anyway.  Rather than installing all of those space-hogging drivers I’d rather just have Windows Update download and install just the ones it needs.

The other drivers are wasted space since the Mini 9 doesn’t even have any of this hardware anyway.  If you hook up a scanner or printer in the future Windows Update will just download the appropriate driver anyway.  You can save about 800MB of space by doing this (printer drivers alone take up 700MB).



Removing Hardware Support

Again, the things I checked were for hardware I knew I wouldn’t need or use.  I kept the networking hardware features since the Mini 9 will stress a lot of network usage since it’s so small and low capacity.

I checked the entire Languages section.  You save an entire 1.1GB by doing this.  I never need other languages but if worst comes to worst they are very easy to install from Windows Update later.



Removing Multimedia

I removed all codecs since I’ll be installing the K-lite Mega Codec Pack which has all of them.  I have always hated the sample movies, pictures, and music so I removed those, and I don’t plan on editing movies on the Mini 9 so goodbye Movie Maker.  I much prefer XBMC to Media Center so that’s gone too.

All I removed in the Network section was Windows Mail.  Like I mentioned above, I’ll be needing as many network features as possible, so I was pretty lenient with this.  Plus, the file size for this entire section is only 151MB.  I left the Services section completely alone.  I didn’t want to disable something that I would end up needing later, and this section is only 155MB.  Feel free to remove service at your leisure but your mileage may vary.



Removing System

I’ve never found Windows Help useful, so goodbye.  Since I already disabled Speech, the 550MB of Natural Language support is useless.  The rest is personal preference to remove small features.



Removing System (part 2)

Tablet PC is useless to me since the Mini 9 has no touch screen so that’s 391MB saved.  System Restore isn’t a big install in itself, but the feature uses a lot of space as I’ve said before.  I use WinRAR so I don’t need Zip Folder.

As you can see, I saved 5GB by removing the features I really wouldn’t use anyway.  I’m not even losing performance or features!  Go vLite!

10. Click next, and you may get warnings about certain disabled features being required by other enabled features.  In my case it was about Windows Media Player and a few other utilities requiring the Windows Media Codecs.  I’m installing a codec pack so I just said No.
11. The next section provides some tweaks to customize your Vista experience.  I set UAC to Disabled since that’s the first thing I do when I install Vista anyway.  In the System tab I disabled Hibernation since the solid state drive is fast enough to not require that kind of performance.  The system is so low power anyway that Standby will last quite a while.  Hibernation just takes up extra disk space.  The rest of the options are personal preference and shouldn’t affect install size.  Hit Next when you are done.
12. This last stage is for performing Unattended installs, or using the features that automatically select the options that the install would otherwise prompt you for.  Fill this out at your discretion.
13. You can now hit Apply to start the “scrubbing”.  You may get the same prompt from step 10 about dependent features and you can give the same response here as you did then.
14. A pop up will ask which version of Vista you would like to rebuild.  To save on install size just choose the one you plan on using.  I am using Vista Ultimate 32-bit, so I chose Rebuild one (Ultimate)
15. Press OK, and away vLite goes!  Since I didn’t integrate any hotfixes and only really stripped data out of the install, the process only took about 25 minutes.
16. Once it finishes you can hit Finish, and the program will close.  Check out how big the Vista installation folder is on your hard drive.  I bet it’s a lot smaller than the original files!

Step 3 – Transfer Vista Install Files to USB Flash Drive

This is a pretty short step, and probably doesn’t even require an entire step anyway.  But, if you didn’t do step 2, you need a nice home to land, so here you are:

• If you did follow step 2, copy the contents of your Vista installation folder to your freshly formatted flash drive
• If you didn’t follow step 2, copy the contents of your Vista installation media (DVD/CD/ISO) to your freshly formatted flash drive

When your copy completes you can close all windows looking at the flash drive and use the Safely Remove Hardware feature to remove the drive.

Step 4 – Install Windows Vista from USB Flash Drive

1. With the Mini 9 powered off insert the flash drive into any of the available USB ports and turn the Mini 9 on
2. When the Dell symbol pops up hit the number ‘0′ to load the Boot Menu
3. Choose USB Storage and press Enter; the Vista installation should begin!
4. Depending on what you selected in vLite’s Unattended Install section (if anything) you’ll get various prompts during the install process.  Proceed according to a normal Vista installation.  The only prompt that may be confusing is the drive/partition configuration stage.  Because of the small size of the hard drives in these netbooks I doubt anyone will be wanting to dual-boot.  Here are the steps for wiping the drive and installing just Vista:
   1. Select the only Disk/Partition that should be listed
   2. Click the Advanced options link
   3. Select Delete
   4. Click OK to confirm the pop up
   5. You should only have Disk 0 Unallocated Space listed, so click Next (don’t bother creating a new partition, the install will now do it automatically
5. So begins the actual install.  Copying files will take about 2 minutes, expanding files will take about 15 minutes, and the rest (including a few restarts) can take up to an hour.  Mine sat at Completing Installation for a long time when I ran the vLite stripped version, but I don’t think that’s normal.

Here is a screenshot of my 16GB drive’s space usage.  Does this convince anyone that stripping Vista down is useful?

Mini 9 16GB Drive Space

Step 5 – Initial Setup

When you first create your account and log into Vista it may immediately restart, but this is just Vista installing some final features, so don’t worry about it.  The first thing you’ll notice is that your screen resolution probably looks wrong; this is because your graphics drivers probably aren’t installed.  No matter, what we really need to do is install one of the Mini 9’s network connection drivers, and most of the rest will fall into place via Windows Update.  I have found the drivers for both the ethernet and the wireless cards (at least on my machine, I don’t know if they have different models) so you can use your flash card to transfer them from another computer.  Please use the manufacturer’s links if you can help it.

• Ethernet – Realtek

Realtek Links – Site 1, Site 2, Site 3
Local Mirror - Install_Vista_6213_1119.zip

• Wireless – Arcadyne Wireless LAN

Dell Link - R197390.EXE
Local Mirror – R197390.EXE

I would recommend starting with the Realtek drivers.  The install I have listed above will detect your card and install the drivers for it automatically.  It makes life very simple.  (I did have a problem during one of my installs where the Realtek installer complained of an XCopy problem.  To solve this, I downloaded just the driver without the installer from Site 1, Site 2, or Site 3.  You can then go into device manager, right-click the Ethernet Controller, and select Update Drivers.  Choose to Browse on your local hard drive and find the folder you extracted the drivers to.)

Once you have your network controllers set up you can go ahead and run Windows Update.  You may need to install a Windows Update update (sheesh, don’t ever use that phrase in normal conversation), and Windows Update kepy on closing itself for me.  I suspect it was the update installing, but eventually Windows Update will actually find a list of updates.  Make sure you click View Available Updates and check the different hardware drivers in addition to the regular updates.  Drivers that mine found were:

• Intel Display
• Creative Webcam

After all of these updates are installed (and you restart your machine if necessary) we will need to install the last few drivers that Windows Update didn’t find.

Mini 9 Device Manager

First, we’ll want to install Dell’s battery meter software.  You don’t actually need the software, so you can uninstall it immediately afterwards.  All we need is the driver is installs and leaves on your machine.  Go ahead and download it here.  After installing restart the computer and uninstall the Battery Meter software if you wish.

I had an issue with getting an error about Windows Media Player crashing all the time.  This is probably due to the vLite strip, and the fix I found was to copy this dll into C:\Windows\System32 and then running C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe.

After this you should only have two unknown devices in Device Manager, both called Base System Device.  Dell’s JMicron driver will take care of these.

Conclusion

And that’s it, folks!  Your Device Manager should be free of unknown devices, and your Dell Mini 9 is ready for the Vista Life!  Please post any concerns or suggestions.  I hope this guide helps people.

1. poor_boy says:

   April 3, 2009 at 2:22 pm

   Sorry Rick,
   Well its been 2 weeks since I’ve had a chance to get back and work on this, It looks like I have a pre SP1 version of vista home premeium.
2. rickatnight11 says:

   April 3, 2009 at 3:03 pm

   It will work, but most likely updating to SP1 after the installation will drastically bump up the space it takes on your drive.
3. poor_boy67 says:

   April 3, 2009 at 10:13 pm

   The computer restarted and come up with an error “Failed to start- windows failed to load because HAL is missing, or corupt.”
   references \windows\system32\hal.dll.
   Can you tell me what i have to do to fix this?
4. rickatnight11 says:

   April 3, 2009 at 10:35 pm

   It’s possible that this is related to your installation being pre-SP1. If you look through the comments there are a few others who had this problem., and that seems to be the only hint.
5. malibu1378 says:

   April 7, 2009 at 7:00 pm

   Hi, firstly….great post
   I’ve recently got myself a 16GB 9 with 2GB of ram. I’m really tempted with this install.
   A couple of questions though if you don’t mind?!

   1) I’ve got a Vista DVD, how do I check whether the DVD is SP1 (or will/should it be?) and if not, can I use the SP1 vista that’s on my laptop? Or do I need to create an iso using vista on my machine?
   2) Do I need to activate vista after the install?

   Sorry for the silly (?!) questions!
   Cheers
6. rickatnight11 says:

   April 8, 2009 at 5:02 pm

   1.) Good question. Sorry for the late response (I’ve been researching your question) but short of reading the Vista DVD (if you have one) I don’t know how to check which service pack is installed, if any. I tried loading my media into vLite to see if it mentions anything, but all it lists is the build of the OS. If you find anything out please let me know.

   2.) Yes you do. vLite does not circumvent any of Vista’s genuine activation features, so activation will need to take place as per normal.
7. malibu1378 says:

   April 8, 2009 at 9:05 pm

   No worries mate, still a pretty rapid reply in my eyes! Thank you
   1) If it’s not mentioned on the dvd, do I need to make an iso of my vista install on this machine? If so is this east?
   2) I’ll have to get me another licence for XP then! Failing that I’ve got a cop of XP on old machine which I don’t use anymore, suppose I could use that.
   Thanks again for your reply
8. malibu1378 says:

   April 9, 2009 at 3:52 pm

   Hi
   I thought I had a vista dvd but it’s only an anytime upgrade dvd, I’ve found a vista premium disc that came with my laptop. Will this work? Or will being OEM mess things up?!
   Cheers
9. rickatnight11 says:

   April 9, 2009 at 4:32 pm

   As far as I know that should work fine.
10. boriscolombia says:

    April 15, 2009 at 3:37 am

    HEy let me say that this is a great guide and I have followed it and it works great. just on tiny problem, my usb devices are not being installed automatically be it a usb drive (tryed 3) or a mouse or a keyboard, Vista detects them but it cant install them, not even the usb drive i used to install works once vista is loaded. and I dint remove any usb or plug and play drivers, that is not even shown on the guide and I wouldnt know where to go to remove them on vlite, I have tried redoing the edit on vlite, from all drivers including printers and such to no drivers but nothing seems to work. thanks for any help.
11. rickatnight11 says:

    April 15, 2009 at 3:42 am

    Well, the first potential cause I can think of is that you stripped the drivers Vista uses for USB devices, but you said you checked it a few times. Are you connected to the internet when you try these USB devices? Vista should at least search for and download the drivers necessary to get them to run.
12. boriscolombia says:

    April 16, 2009 at 7:37 pm

    yea it is connected but it doesn’t find anything, also I basically have been redoing the v-lite process with all drivers, no drivers some drivers and no luck, I did notice that it has something to do with the mini drivers, if i use a copy of vista without any hardware driver (video, sound etc) any usb device i connect is detected and installed, as soon as I install one of the hardware parts it gets messed up. I have tried streaming the drivers and just installing them after the vista installation but always the same.
13. rickatnight11 says:

    April 16, 2009 at 8:09 pm

    After installing Vista I would check in your Device Manager to make sure there aren’t any devices with missing drivers. It’s possible that your USB Controller is not fully installed, or something else is interfering. If you see any yellow question mark icons I would deal with those first.
14. jprchan says:

    April 25, 2009 at 5:10 am

    Thanks for this guide! it helped me a lot

    I actually used this guide to install Windows 7 Beta Build 7077. Everything is the same basically. I have a Dell Mini 9 512ram 8gb SSD
15. rickatnight11 says:

    April 25, 2009 at 3:32 pm

    Good to know! I’m planning on putting Windows 7 on it soon.
16. baz_37 says:

    May 9, 2009 at 7:32 pm

    hi..im having problems with usb drivers…some flash usbs work but other dont..i dont understand y..can u please help….ive read what u said above about vlite and device manager but, theres nothing wrong with it because some flash usbs work….please help..cheers
17. rickatnight11 says:

    May 10, 2009 at 12:26 am

    Hey baz, that is an interesting problem. I would go take a look in your Device Manager just to make sure that there aren’t any warnings in there. Make sure your laptop is connected to the Internet when you plug new flash drives in. Perhaps some of them use a driver that isn’t installed but can be downloaded through Windows Update. If none of that helps the only thing I can think is that you stripped something important with vLite. I wish I could be more help but I have not had that issue.

    On another note, might I recommend Windows 7? I have a guide for that, it’s free and available, and in my opinion runs much better than Vista on the same hardware. All of the drivers got picked up automatically to boot!
18. Optimum vLite setup for Windows 7RC on 8gb ssd? - MyDellMini says:

    May 13, 2009 at 12:37 pm

    [...] [...]
19. baz_37 says:

    May 15, 2009 at 11:25 am

    thanks for the reply rick..i checked it all and ive dun everything, flash drives work..its usb cables that im having the problems with..but erm i was thinking about it and the only reasons y im taking long to decide is because im worried about disk space..im on 16gb n want at least 6-7gb available after all my downloads..ive but erm the other issue is, i dont even have the windows beta 7 software..any suggestions into wat i can do..btw do u think the usb’s will work ok on it if i got windows 7…
    cheers mate
20. baz_37 says:

    May 15, 2009 at 11:40 am

    btw whats the diff between vista and windows 7..whats so good abt it..looks the same 2 me lol..thanks
21. rickatnight11 says:

    May 15, 2009 at 1:09 pm

    I don’t know what’s causing the USB issue, so I don’t know if Windows 7 will fix it. Since you said it’s just USB cables, perhaps it’s a low voltage problem.

    Windows 7 is, in my opinion, what Vista was supposed to be. Microsoft was taking forever to develop Vista, so people complained, and Microsoft rushed to release. Windows 7 fixes many of Vista’s bugs, improves performance and stability, and comes with some neat new features. You can get the Release Candidate for free right now, and test it for a year. Just google “Windows 7 RC”.
22. baz_37 says:

    May 16, 2009 at 2:57 pm

    well its worth it i guess…aint got much to lose really..il give it a shot after my exams coz i dont have time right now but…is there anywer else i can get a full version of it.. because a trail version is no gd to me really…thanks
23. rickatnight11 says:

    May 16, 2009 at 3:29 pm

    Windows 7 is not finalized yet. The release candidate comes out after the beta, and is meant for final testing and bug reports.
24. baz_37 says:

    May 17, 2009 at 11:07 am

    oh ok erm, so how long till there is a full version? and if i get the 1 year version..what do i do after it runs out?
25. rickatnight11 says:

    May 17, 2009 at 4:19 pm

    The final release of Windows 7 is supposedly coming out late this year. The Release Candidate is good until midway through 2010. You have two options:

    1.) Use a hack that is sure to be made by then to prevent the OS from locking down

    2.) Reformat with the full release, which isn’t that big of a deal. You shouldn’t be storing enough on these small drives to make it difficult to back up.

    I wouldn’t stress it and highly recommend giving Windows 7 a try.
26. baz_37 says:

    May 18, 2009 at 6:19 pm

    ok then, i’ll do it after my exams then rick..thanks as always and much appreciated!!
27. baz_37 says:

    June 17, 2009 at 1:13 am

    hi rick…exams are over and everything…so im going to put windows 7 on my laptop 2day..bt just to make sure…can u list some benefits ands costs so i no wat im dealing with…thanks
28. baz_37 says:

    June 17, 2009 at 1:14 am

    by the way, wats the difference between windows 7 and windows ultimate?
29. rickatnight11 says:

    June 17, 2009 at 2:26 am

    Hey, baz. At the moment Windows 7 is completely free, so that’s an immediate benefit. Plus you get to use the most feature-filled version, Ultimate. This answers your other question. Ultimate is not a version of Windows, but rather a version of Windows 7 or Windows Vista. It’s the version that comes with all the features such as Aero and Bitlocker.

    Windows 7 is supposedly being released in October of this year, but you’ll have until midway through next year, I believe, to play with the RC. In my opinion it’s just as stable as a final release. It’s actually more stable than Vista anyway. If you are thinking about running Vista (especially on a netbook like the Mini 9) you might as well use Windows 7. Since netbooks are getting so popular, Microsoft made it a priority to increase the performance and reduce the footprint on the computer. You should notice a speed increase from Vista to 7.
30. baz_37 says:

    June 17, 2009 at 10:25 am

    ite nice one rick..im going to do it 2day…ill be posting any issues on your other blog ok..cheers!
31. naarg says:

    June 19, 2009 at 1:57 pm

    I’m also getting the error message about “setup.rul 1725″ when trying to install the wireless driver. I was able to get all the updates via a wired connection, but the wireless network still isn’t working. Did anyone else see this problem and find a solution?
32. naarg says:

    June 20, 2009 at 1:40 am

    Still no luck with the Wireless driver. Dell says it is not supported on Vista. Has anyone else had problems installing it on the Mini 9?
33. kingu says:

    July 22, 2009 at 11:45 am

    hi rick
    i just follow all instructions.. and everythings works fine!! but.. my sound driver dont works!!.. i try with vista drivers but win7 dont let me install this (no same inf tells the error message).
    any clue?
    the device is recognized rightly but the audio hd drivers installs but with yellow advice and doesnt works (error code 39)
    im desperate.
    thx and sorry for my bad english
    regards
34. rickatnight11 says:

    July 22, 2009 at 1:07 pm

    You are posting a comment on the Windows Vista post, but mentioned Windows 7. The process should be the same. First, make sure you are connected to the internet, right-click on the device with the yellow warning sign, and select Update.

    Try to get Windows Update to install the driver automatically. It’s possible that you stripped the audio drivers from the installation, but Windows Update should be able to help you out.
35. kingu says:

    July 22, 2009 at 1:48 pm

    yep, sorry i wrote in wrong forum
    yes im connected to inet but when choose update, after windows search process, it tells me that yet have the right sound driver (but still yellw warning appears).
    it appears me as high audio device nor realtek device, if try to install manually from realtek audio directory (extracted files), windows tell me that found the realtek audio driver.. but the .inf file doesnt match with that windows version. i´ve installed 2 times windows 7 and i ´ve the same result. thats the firs time that cannot install a driver in a windows system!
    thx 4 your help
36. rickatnight11 says:

    July 22, 2009 at 2:08 pm

    I highly suspect that it has to do with how you stripped the Windows installation with vLite, but I’d like to take a look at it. Shoot me an email at rickatnight11@gmail.com, and maybe we can schedule a time for me to remote into your system and try and solve the problem.
37. Windows 7 On 8GB SSD - Page 6 says:

    January 9, 2010 at 1:10 pm

    [...] got my beta .iso down to 1.3gb, and it installed in 3.2gb. I basically used the guide from here : http://rickatnight11.com/?p=71 to do the install from a usb stick. You can safely follow everything listed there, except do not [...]