Customized/manual Windows 7 install?


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It's Windows nostalgia time again!

I'll admit to a certain love/hate relationship with Windows 7, with a lot of reasons for both sides. But I want to start messing around with it again. Partly because I see a lot of it at work, partly because let's be frank, it's a really cool shiny OS, and much more advanced than Linux in a lot of ways. (GPU scheduling and VRAM management, powerful filesystem ACLs with integrated mandatory access control, filesystem snapshotting without LVM or such, probably better CPU and I/O scheduling...) Also it'd be nice to gain a little familiarity with Powershell and Windows system programming.

Here's the problem: what I actually want is more like Windows 2008 Server Core. I want to be able to install only the components I want. Not Windows Explorer or IE, not Media Player, and not 10 GB of drivers for PCI devices I'll never use; basically just System32, Powershell and some CLI tools, and cmd.exe. The rest I can download.

Is there a way to do this? Aside from using vLite or WAIK or such, where you have to install Windows, install .NET, build a custom ISO, burn it to a DVD, reinstall from that...

My initial thought was something like, "Use a batch script to XCOPY the stuff I need from the install DVD to the hard disk." But the install process seems more complicated than that.

Any helpful ideas? :)

Edit: using an unaltered, legally purchased install DVD. Just want to make that clear.

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Not sure if it violates the EULA, but I'm positive you'd be running an unsupported Windows 7 install. Windows 7 is not meant to run in that type of configuration.

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Hmm. I was thinking that wouldn't be a problem, but you're probably right - chances are I'd be missing header files that I needed for system programming stuff. Okay, scratch that idea...

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