98lite

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98lite Windows Me Desktop

98lite is a utility for Windows 98 and Windows Me written by Shane Brooks. It removes Internet Explorer components from Windows along with several operating system components that require IE to be present. 98lite was one of the first programs to provide a method for removing Internet Explorer. It was written in response to Microsoft's claim, in antitrust proceedings, that IE is integrated into Windows and cannot be removed without breaking other features.

History

98lite was created by Shane Brooks in the second half on 1998 just after the original release of Windows 98. The idea simply came out of necessity, at the time Brooks had a slower laptop computer that ran the Windows 95 operating system fine but Windows 98 was simply too slow. Brooks liked the stability Windows 98 offered as well as some of the new features but had no need for the Internet Explorer browser. The original 98lite was a simple DOS based installer that ran before the Windows 98 installation, this installer made modifications to a fresh installation of Windows preventing the installation of Internet Explorer and the Active Desktop. Installation of the first release of 98lite required the user to extract certain files from a Windows 95 disk as 98lite uses the Windows 95 shell. A second program called Shell Swap swapped the Explorer shell with the Windows 95 Explorer, which does not contain the web features of Me's and 98's Explorer and is therefore considerably faster and more lightweight, this was designed for existing installations of Windows 98 where the original 98lite was designed for a new installation of Windows. A third program converted "required" components into addable and removable options. With version 2.0 of 98lite, the three programs were merged and combined into a single, easy-to-use program. The IE remover was combined with the components converter, making IE uninstallable and reinstallable with the Add/Remove Programs control panel applet as with the other components, the user could also choose the Windows 95 shell and keep Internet Explorer installed. The user now had three installation options, the "sleek" option allowed the user to install 98lite with the Windows 95 shell like in the original release or the user could choose "chubby" which used the Windows 98 shell with some Active Desktop features disabled. The final option was "overweight," the overweight option installed 98lite with the Windows 98 shell and nothing disabled but Internet Explorer still removed. Version 3.0 added support for Windows 98 Second Edition, an upgraded version of Windows 98 with Internet Explorer 5.0 which made 98lite 1.0 through 2.0 obsolete. The current 4.x line has many improvements, including bugfixes and support for Windows Me. 98lite exists in Pro and Enterprise flavors, and there exists software superior to 98lite called 98EOS. Here are listed all flavors of 98lite-related software. 98lite was presented to the United States Department of Justice as evidence that Microsoft was monopolizing the browser market.[citation needed] Following the release of Windows XP, 2000-XPLite was released as a way of removing unwanted components including the Internet Explorer browser from Windows 2000 and Windows XP. 2000-XPLite does not use the text interface of a previous 98lite.

Alternatives to 98lite

Revenge of Mozilla is another, free, application that removes Internet Explorer from Windows 98 and restores the Windows 95 explorer.exe. There are two versions of this, one for the original Windows 98 release, and another for Win98 SE; there is no version for Windows Me. This is no longer supported, and not being updated.

There is also a company spun off from Lite-PC that produces Windows 98 and Me installations which are small enough to easily fit on embedded microchips; as small as 8MB, using 98EOS. There are also many free alternatives to this, such as Mindows and Nano98, which can provide either smaller file sizes, or more broad functionality.

Compatibility

Removing Windows components can adversely affect software which assumes they are present. Notably, installing any version of DirectX under 98lited Windows requires at least temporary presence of PC Health. Otherwise DirectX refuses to install, finishing installation attempt with error message "DirectX did not copy a required file".

Windows NT component removal

With the success of 98lite, Shane Brooks decided to make a similar functionality with 2000-XPLite. It can remove similar "mandatory" components from Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Unlike 98lite, 2000-XPlite will not install Windows without the components. Also unlike 98lite, alternatives to 2000-XPLite already exist, such as NLite. NLite prevents components from being installed rather than removing them from an already-installed system. The Windows NT system is also not as 'shrinkable' as the 9x base; with few NT5+ minimization projects falling below 100MB; compared to the slightly more than 5MB (or less than UPX'ed 5MB) of Nano98.

See also

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Windows Me boot and Windows 2000 boot

External links

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