I came across the tool vLite , in a post by Ina Fried, which lets you create a new Vista installation ISO stripped of unwanted applications which bloats and slows down Vista. What's unique is this tool actually modifies Vista before it's installed so the unwanted applications aren't ever installed as part of Vista's installation process.

As you might expect, Microsoft's indicated it does not endorse using a tool like this as it could have unintended consequences with future software updates from Microsoft. That's understandable, especially given this program's unconventional nature. I'd also be concerned about users unknowingly disable important security software, or creating instability by not having all the needed software in a Vista installation.

I haven't had a chance to try out vLite myself yet as I'm traveling this week. While I don't run Vista on underspec'd machines, I don't find poor performance to be a major concern running it on an Intel Duo Core 2.0, 2GB memory machine. Other than Vista's poor file copy performance, it does fine overall from my experiences.

I'm curious who is using vLite, and what benefits you're finding from it. Is it when using Vista on underspec'd machines? Are there are few key programs or services that if disabled or not installed really make a significant difference in performance?

If you have experiences improving Vista's performance, particularly using a utility like vLite, please post a comment about your experiences.

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