Hi, Anybody has installation of Windows 7 that will run on VMWARE, uses the minimum amount of memory (important) and minimum disk space (less important). I mainly want to retain the RDP Host capability and IE and kill everything else (AERO,etc,etc). If anybody has done something similar, how much memory does your image use ?
Installed Windows 7 Professional 32-bit in WMVare 7 Final, Virtual machine set to 1 processor, disabled 3D graphics, 1024GB RAM. I was able to lower the memory (after installation of Windows 7) down to 384 MB without problems; 265 MB memory usage after login. Enough room for RDP Host and IE, I think. I turned off the following services: Diganostic Policy Service (Automatic to Disabled) Homegroup Provider (Manual to Disabled) Offline files (Automatic to Disabled) Printer Spooler (Automatic to Disabled) Superfetch (Automatic to Disabled) Shell Hardware Detection ( Automatic to Disabled) Windows Defender (Automatic delayed start to Disabled) Windows Firewall (Automatic to Disabled) Windows Search (Automatic delayed start to Disabled) Security Center (Automatic delayed start to Disabled) Themes (Automatic to Disabled) Windows Audio (Automatic to Disabled) Windows Audio Endpoint Builder (Automatic to Disabled) Windows Media Player Network (Manual to Disabled) Multimedia Class Scheduler (Automatic to Disabled) UPnP Device Host (Manual to Disabled)
Sounds good. So not using anything to strip the OS ? If anybody has anything else to recommend in term of disabling but retaining Core functionality, that will be great. I only have the ultimate, but I think it should work out to be almost the same.
You can set the memory size for each VM. I set a full install at 512MB and it worked fine. You might try setting it to the limit that you have and test it.
Limiting the memory at the HOST using VMWare is not going to work... The memory should be reduced AT the guest. Only after the memory has been reduced at the guest, then it works properly in reducing the memory at the VMWARE. Otherwise you end up with harddisk thrashing. I would like to target 256M but obviously that will be pushing it.