Stripping Windows down / updating drives

Hello, this is a two part questions... or two questions as a matter of fact.
I'm running parallel 9 on a mac air which has 120gb HDD
I have a Windows 7 VM always running in coherence mode.

I've Googled and found out rt7lite... a couple of weeks ago... and I the download links weren't responding... and as of the time this post is written the site is inaccessible. The point of this tool was to strip Windows tools I didn't want to save disk space. Things like Internet Explorer, paint, the mini widgets for the desktop I don't even use... etc...

Question #1: Is there a way to remove these features? I've found a way to "disable" them, but I'm pretty sure they're still there... just aren't working.

Also, Question #2: I'm aiming this Windows VM to play some games, and occasionally a Windows only product. I'm not really sure where to go to update the graphic drivers...
I'm a bit unsure as to how VM's work with "virtual hardware", should I just look for driver updates as if it were my mac graphic's board?... or something

So... yeah...hum... help?

saturnotaku said:

By disabling hibernation and shrinking my swapfile down to 1 GB, a base Windows 7 Professional installation is less than 10 GB on my MacBook Pro. Do think on your machine, and you'll realize similar savings without having to mess with any 3rd-party software.



This is not possible when using a virtual machine, as the company providing the software (Parallels, VMWare, etc) writes its own proprietary drivers.

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Regarding #1, thanks I'll look into that. Since games tend to get a little heavy on disk space I wanted to save as much as possible.

About #2. I installed Steam in Windows and downloaded Sonic Generations. However I get an error for missing dll files when I run the config file (running the game just demands I run the config file).
I'd bet that missing dll reggards missing graphic drivers or something similar.

So... you're saying I can't play Windows games on a VM?

saturnotaku said:

Some games are playable, but many either run very slowly or not at all. It's entirely possible that Sonic Generations is simply not playable. The recommended system specs are fairly steep so even if it did run, it would probably do so very slowly within a VM, especially on a MacBook Air that doesn't have a discreet GPU.

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so... what are my options? ... To give you the full story I've been a bit down because I'd really like to play Sonic Lost World, unfortunately I have neither a Wii U nor a 3DS... and there are no emulators for either.
But then I found out there is a cool mod for Sonic Generations that's pretty much a remake of Sonic Unleashed.
I'd like to run Windows (through VM or bootcamp) and steam in it.

Would you recommend I install Windows in a bootcamp partition? Any advice on how to split partitions (assuming the occupied space would relatively be the same)

saturnotaku said:

Boot Camp is the best solution for gaming. I normally recommend at least a 60 GB partition for Windows. You could probably get away with 40 if you disable hibernation and shrink the pagefile to 1-2 GB and only have the one game installed.

At the same time, even with Windows booting natively, it's not a guarantee that the game will run well because the MacBook Air barely meets minimum specifications if it does at all. The only way to find out is to give Boot Camp a shot, but don't go in expecting miracles.

Failing everything else, pick up a 3DS on Craigslist. I've seen them available there for well under $100.

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iRegardless I have a Intel HD Graphics 4000 1024 MB and a 1,7 GHz Intel Core i5. This "bad boy" was able to run Mortal Online with better graphics than my old'ish HP dv3, which fyi has an i7 processor (on bootCamp).
The only issue I'm encountering is really the space. 40 gigs... though... that may do the trick... despite the contingencies...

As for the craiglist thing, I couldn't ever feel good about my conscience if I spent $100 on a 3Ds just to play a Sonic game, even if the reviews are good. I think I'll just pull up a chair and chill while the peeps come up with the emulator.

PS: maybe I wasn't clear enough... I had my air running Bootcamp with Windows 8 and playing Mortal Online nicely with graphic definitions that would feel laggy on my HP dv3. I wasn't enjoying the lack of space, because both partitions were running out of space. Perhaps trying this again with Windows 7 basic should work a little better.

But, just to clear my question, is there really no way to completely remove unused features in Windows? Like uninstalling IE and such? I already knew the hibernation and swap memory tricks, I was looking for something else to boost free space, I'm sure Windows has lots of features I don't even use.