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I remember hearing about a way you can run Windows XP so slimmed down that you don’t even need to launch explorer! In my situation, I’d be happy to just run Breakaway, ZaraRadio, edcast/shoutcast and whatever drivers they need. Audio and network drivers, I think would be it, other than the base windows services. I understand if you take explorer out of the picture, it’s almost like Windows is just a base platform to interface the software with the hardware. Of course, you’d need to be able to interface with the software, launching, adjusting, etc. it would almost be like running without a GUI (no icons, no start button/taskbar,etc).
My questions are does anyone do this? Is it practical? Is it still stable? Am I right to think that some professional radio automation systems run on windows this way?
Thanks for this discussion.
I don’t know enough about operating systems and driver loads, but I can say with 100% assurance that I’ve never seen an automation system not run on top of Windows (or Linux), unless it was DOS based.
Of course!
There are several ways to slim down windows. I prefer to disable some of the services only.
You can use a software to setup the order of the programs that you need to startup with the OS and the delay
of each of them to be sure that the drivers are loaded before automation software or BBP, encoders etc.Also you can select from Windows msconfig to startup your computer without GUI.
msconfig.exe ->BOOT.INI tab ->select /NOGUIBOOT ->Apply,OK, reboot….(Before select NOGUIBOOT and restart the pc, select for backround solid black color) 😉
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GeorgeYou don’t need to slim down XP at all to ditch Explorer. All of the load/save file windows etc are not actually explorer, but Shell32. So ALL properly coded software should run fine without Explorer.
What you probably will want is a halfway decent file browser to use as a shell, Leif can make some recommendations there as I haven’t checked out that stuff in a while.
And all you do is change the shell path in your registry to either blank or whatever file manager you want to use, and Explorer is gone baby.
You can actually test if your software is going to work fine without explorer by going to your task manager, right clicking on explorer, and going to "End Process Tree" which will close most/all software you had running. Then you press Windows+R keys to open the "Run" window, and you can type in or browse for the executable you want to run. Namely Breakaway and your automation related software. If it all works, then you should be fine to change the shell location in your registry, and you’ll never see Explorer again.
Actually though, you can see it again if you ever want to. You run it just like a program, because that’s really all it is. Just another program that runs on your computer. 😉
You can, it’s possible, but it’s not really worth it.
I tried with XP embedded booting from a USB stick.
Booting to command prompt (no explorer) with no network support whatsoever, the system booted (power-on to finished) in 24 seconds.
With explorer and network support, booting took 28 seconds. For me, those are 4 seconds well spent!
///Leif
I’m running BBP on a P4 here in the absolute lowest cpu setting…the cpu itself is screaming at 93%. This is a good thread, because,if possible, I would like to give this machine a little more headroom, if possible.
What can be disabled?
🙂I start with some basics… Indexing Service, Wireless Zero Config, Error Reporting Service, Help and Support, Themes, and then you can consider Auto Updates and System Restore as options. There are some good sites out there that can guide you through safely setting up services to make windows slimmer. Google/Bing/Yahoo windows xp services disabled or something similar.
My main question Jesse addressed nicely is running windows without the bulky Explorer. I need to talk more about that. Once I eliminate explorer, I can set apps to autolaunch in the registry, right? Since there will be no icons and no task bar, it would be difficult, other than manually hitting windows-r.
Thanks.
You could, for instance, even have a batch script as your "shell" with a list of commands to launch all of your apps.
Disabling services in XP should not significantly affect CPU usage. They really don’t consume much unless actively in use. Have you tried low cpu mode?
///Leif
Leif,
My specific goal isn’t CPU usage reduction or conservation. It’s more about long-term stability. The less things running, I would guess, the less things that could crash or hang.
Thanks for the help folks!
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