File: PRUNE_95.TXT             Guy Dunphy                8 Jan 1998



               On cutting Windows 95 down to size





The DOJ vs Microsoft case has brought to wider attention the question of

whether Microsoft's Internet Explorer is really part of Windows 95 or not,

and whether the browser can actually be deleted completely and still leave

a working Windows 95 OS and networking capability.



I'm rather interested in this too, both for the relevance of the answer to

the matter of dealing with Microsoft, and also because I've just been forced

to install Lose 95 on my two other (game network) PCs - just to run networked

Quake II. Sigh. Oh ID, _why_ did you have to make Quake II require Win95?



Anyway, the dammed thing is huge, and I'd really like to cut out all the

non-essential rubbish. Especially since I had to set those machines up

like my main PC, to boot switch between DOS 6.2 and Win95 (to run old but

good DOS games, of course!)



One thing that I'd like to kick off those PCs is Internet Explorer, and all

its associated garbage. But how? And what else can I safely delete?





I've been using Win95 (only when absolutely necessary) on my main PC for

a while, but due to its abhorrent nature I've avoided looking into what

can be done to prune it back a bit. Long ago I did that for DOS (got it

down to about half size) and a bit of Windows 3.1 cutback too. But Win 95

got put on its own removable 1 Gig Jaz cartridge, which so far is not full.

Also (sadly) I've needed to keep Internet Explorer, to check compatibility

of my web page with it. Sort of. Actually, I gave up trying to deal with

MS's corruption of HTML and JavaScript, and just use IE now to see how

badly my page fails under IE. Like I care. :-)



But anyway... does anyone know of any work being done on issues like:-



 - Identifying the purpose of all the files that make up Windows 95.

 - Exactly what can be removed from Windows 95?

 - How to excise Internet Explorer, without damaging Windows itself,

   or the dialup networking facilities.



If there is not already a co-operative group looking at this, perhaps now

would be a good time to set one up. Most cool would be an executable or

batch file that could automaticly cull the rubbish out of Win 95. Would

make a good demo for the DOJ case, too.



  "Your honour, allow me to demonstrate how this so-called 'essential'

   component may be removed... (click on icon, 5 seconds of disk access...)

   like so. Leaving a completely functional, current version of Windows 95,

   several megabytes smaller, and containing no trace of Internet Explorer."



Yeah!  :-)  Could call it 'GlassCutter.exe'.



In the meantime, here are a few things I cut out, seemingly without any

harmfull effects (touch wood.):-



 * win95\Temporary internet Files\cache1,2,3,4 and sub files.

 

 * win95\Java and all sub-dirs.   Would you trust MS's version of Java?

 

 * Program Files\Internet Mail, Internet News.

 

 * Win95\cookies & subfiles.

 

 * win95\history & subfiles.

 

 * win95\media\themic~1.wav and all other files. The stupid Windows startup

   and event sounds. You _did_ turn these off, right?



 * win95\wangsamp & subfiles.

 

 * All the 'sign up now for AOL, etc' icons, shortcuts and their

   directories and files.



There was more, but I started feeling too sick to make notes.

Damm, there are a lot of things tucked away out of reach in Win95.

That bloody 'registry' thing needs a wooden stake driven through its heart.

If MS's next effort at an operating system is much worse than this, I'll

consider having an exorcist round to take a look at my PC after the upgrade.