This tutorial will show you how to shrink your copy of Windows 7 so that it will be as small as 3.8GB and will fit on the 4GB SDD of the Asus Eee PC 700 and 900!
Now follow the steps below to make your own customized version of Windows 7 for your Netbook. This is quite complicated compared to a normal installation of Windows 7, and perhaps there will be an easier way in the future, but until now, this is better than nothing, and you can have the other SDD for all the stuff you want to have on your netbook.
Thanks to Basti756 for this awesome tutorial! See the proof that it is working below:
Get Windows 7
You can download Windows 7 Beta 1 either from the official Microsoft Windows 7 download site or via Torrent, which should be 100% legal since the official version has been released for public testing. Download torrent file.
Required software:
- WAIK 1.1 (download)
Mount the image and install WAIK before installing vLite - vLite (download)
At the first start, vLite will tell you how to enable the WAIK stuff installed before - vLite Settings file (download)
Extract the *.ini file and copy it to your vLite root directory/presets - Imaging Software: i.e. Acronis True Image Echo Server 9.5 (download)
Link to trial version which fits your needs, you may also download it from your favorite warez/torrent site if you need a full version - Windows 7 (download)
Prepare the Windows 7 image
First of all you have to put the Windows 7 disk on a diet to make it fit on the Asus Eee PC. To achieve this goal we use vLite. On first start you will be asked for your Windows installation files. If you have an ISO file just mount it with Daemon Tools/Virtual Clone Drive, in case you got a Windows 7 DVD put it in your drive. Then hit the ‘Browse’-button and point to your Windows files. You will be asked for a folder to copy them to the local harddisk. This may take a while. When asked for the Windows Edition, make sure to choose ‘Windows 7 ULTIMATE’. Choosing anything else will mess up the installation.
Afterwards click ‘Tasks’ on the left pane and choose only the two options ‘Components’ and ‘Bootable ISO’. Leave the other entries as they are. Then hit ‘Preset’ on the menubar, choose load, select the *.ini file you downloaded (’Windows_7_EEE_900′) and press ‘Components’ on the left pane. You can close the ‘Compatibilty’-popup. Make sure to select all languages except the one which fits to your keyboard. Then you will see a popup which offers three different methods of creating your installation. Choose ‘Rebuild One (Ultimate)’ and hit OK.
This may take a long time, so don’t worry. After this is done, you will be offered to create the ISO file. Click ‘Make ISO’ (NOT Exit at this point), choose the name and path to save and the process will start.
Now we’re done with vLite and you should end up with a 1.26GB ISO file.
Create a bootable Windows 7 USB thumbdrive
The second step is to create a bootable USB thumbdrive as described in my earlier tutorial about how to install Windows 7 on the Asus Eee PC 900. Use the ISO you created with vLite instead of the original Windows 7 ISO/DVD.
Now take another USB thumbdrive (128MB should be enough in this case) and create another bootable media with Acronis True Image. Insert the thumbdrive into one of your computer’s USB ports and go to Start -> Acronis -> True Image Echo Server and select ‘Bootable Rescue Media Builder’. When asked for the target media choose your small USB thumbdrive and after a few minutes you’re done.
Installation
Now install Windows 7 as described in my earlier tutorial about how to install Windows 7 on the Asus Eee PC 900 using the bigger USB thumbdrive you prepared.
You will have to install it to the 8GB SSD since it won’t fit on the smaller one, but don’t worry – we’ll take care of that. After a couple of minutes or even hours the installation should be done and you will end up with a working Windows 7 on your 8GB SSD. Now you’ll have to apply a few tweaks in order to decrease the size of the installation.
We’ll start with deactivating the pagefile for all drives. Therefore right-click on ‘Computer’ and select properties. On the left side choose ‘Advanced system settings’ and hit ‘Settings’ under ‘Performance’. Click the ‘Advanced’-tab and afterwards the ‘Change…’-button. No deselect the ‘Automatically manage paging file size for all drives’, select drive C:, choose ‘No paging file’ and click the ‘Set’-button right beside it. Now hit OK in each window until you see the ‘System properties’-windows again.
Click ‘System protection’ on the left pane this time, continue with ‘Configure’. In the popup choose ‘Turn off system protection’ and hit OK until… you already know that.
Now deactivate hibernation, since it takes around 1GB from your SSD. Click the Start-button, search for and select ‘Disk Cleanup’, choose drive C:, click OK and select every option available. Then hit OK again and we’re done, hibernation is disabled.
The last step is to decrease the recycle bin size. Right-click on it and choose 200MB for drive C:\
Reboot the Asus Eee PC now to check the drive space on your system disk. There should be something around 2.9GB used. If so, go on – if not check the steps again and repeat them if nothing else works.
Just in case you don’t have a USB HDD… format your Windows 7 USB thumbdrive now, because we’ll need about 3GB (better 4GB) for image creation.
Now plugin your Acronis-bootable thumbdrive and your USB HDD/4GB USB thumbdrive and restart. Make sure to boot the Acronis thumbdrive and choose Acronis True Image Full Version (in case you integrated the safe version, too). When loading finished (this may take some minutes) select ‘Backup’ and choose your 8GB SSD as captured device and the USB HDD/4GB USB thumbdrive as target. You don’t need to choose any compression, password protection or anything else. Wait about 10 minutes, then the process should be done.
After that reboot from the Acronis thumbdrive again, make sure that the other drive is still connected and choose ‘Add new Disk’ first. Choose your 8GB SSD, delete all partitions on it and reformat it or leave it unformated – it doesn’t matter in this case. Now you should be redirected to the main menu. Choose ‘Recover’ this time and select the image you created to restore. Afterwards you will be asked for a target disk – choose the 4GB SSD. During the next step choose ‘Resize target partition’, and the select the space AFTER the 200MB partition. Don’t delete this partition because Windows 7 needs it for start up. You should be asked for that so DON’T choose the option ‘Delete partitions on target media’. Afterwards you can start restoring the partition. This will take another 10-15 minutes.
When Acronis finished its job, prepare the USB thumbdrive you already used for the Windows installation again for the Windows installation. This time it doesnt matter wether you take the vlited ISO or the original ISO for that. Boot this thumbdrive again, choose your language and select ‘Repair this computer’. After Windows PE searched for your Windows installation you will be asked wether you want to quit or ‘Restart and fix Problem’ – select the second option.
Now you should end up with a working Windows 7 version on the smaller SSD with about 750MB free space. You can add drivers now and start installing software on the 8GB SSD.
This tutorial was prepared by Basti756, much appreciation for his effort!
January 11th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Thanks for publishing as I requested ^^ Thanks Basti for making it in the first place!
I’ll post if everything worked for me later.
January 12th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
[...] ちなみに、上記ブログには900関係の情報が、他にも結構あるようだ。最新のエントリには、 Shrink Windows 7 to fit on Asus Eee PC 4GB SDD or any netbook [...]
January 13th, 2009 at 12:14 am
First, to make downloading a little faster: Download and install vLite 1.1.6, then download and install vLite 1.2 (into the exact same folder)
-> WAIK will not be needed at all because 1.1.6 contains all files needed from WAIK.
Acronis True Image Echo Workstation 9.5 Build can be downloaded from Softpedia etc. without needing to register with Arconis.
I just finished installing to the 8gb ssd and everything is working nice so far. Hope to find the time to transfer to the 4gb ssd tomorrow.
January 13th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Also, for people who’ve never worked with Vista ciming straight from XP (like I did) turning off hibernation is done by:
Go to Start -> Computer (right click) -> manage -> Local Users and Groups -> Users -> Administrator (right click) -> Properties -> Account is disabled (uncheck).
Now you can login as the Administrator, go to a command prompt and deactivate hibernation by executing “powercfg -h off”.
January 14th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Acronis True Image Echo Server 9.5 trial is NOT sufficient! Is there another free (legal) solution?
January 14th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
I have no idea actually, perhaps Basti knows something.
January 14th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Hi there,
sorry for assuming that the Acronis trial would be sufficient. I used a full version but I believed that you could create a bootable USB thumbdrive with the trial, too since it worked with previous versions.
Actually you can use any imaging software which is able to restore an image to a different sized partition and which is able to boot of a USB thumbdrive. Maybe some small linux would do it.
January 14th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
Anyone get this working on the 8GB SSD version of Acer Aspire One?
January 15th, 2009 at 12:01 am
@Chad:
Did you try it? It should work the same way it does with our Eee PC. Install the small version made with vLite on your SSD (needs around 4GB), then make it even smaller by deleting page file, hibernate files, … and use Acronis to create the new disc image.
I see no reason why it shouldn’t work!
January 15th, 2009 at 12:13 am
I did use vlite, it came down 50% to 1.25 GB. I didn’t use your version, but mine. Anyone, didn’t see anything regarding page file and hibernation file in vlite. Unless you’re referring to that after the install is completed?
January 15th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Yes, follow the tutorial please. When the installation on your Aspire One is done, use the Microsoft tools to delete page files, make trash smaller, … and create a new, bootable image with Acronis.
January 16th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Thanks a ton for the .ini config file. I have almost 1GB of free space on the 4GB SSD.
January 16th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
So. Everything worked perfectly, and as Megatron said have almost a gig of free space on the small ssd. But! I don’t really feel any difference in speed and I’m missing some features that I would have liked to use. Personally, I will install a slightly larger version on the 8 gig ssd and leave it at that.
Still, of course, thanks for the comprehensive tutorial!
January 20th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Good news for everybody wanting to use the 4gb ssd for windows 7, we can now directly install to the small disk using the larger one (or any external Disk I guess) for temporary files during the installation. Check out the tutorial here http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=56897
January 21st, 2009 at 4:44 pm
OK, rookie here. I have owned my eee pc 700 for about a year. Linux version. I have had to restore it once. That worked like a charm. I have 2 concerns.
1. I would like to try this but I want to make sure that, when I finish, if I want to I can still do the factory reset to get back to where I am now.
2. The way I understand this method is that I will be installing Windows 7 on the built in SSD and then installing applications on the 8 gig SSD card I use. Then I follow Basti756’s instructions and end up with a slimmed down version of Windows 7 beta. Do I understand correctly?
Thanks,
KH2K
January 21st, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Basti’s method should work if you install to a virtual machine and then ghost the install to the 701. The 701 does not have a secondary ssd (or is there a newer version that has?), so you would have very(!) limited space for programs and data.
Unless you meant an SD card, but keep in mind that programs loaded from that will be pretty slow. Also, general performance of win7 on the 701 will likely be a lot worse then on the 901.
Apart from those issues, I think it should be possible but harder to do and less rewarding in the end.
January 25th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
@knighthawke2k:
The factory reset won’t be working any more. When you buy the Eee PC, around 400MB of the 4GB SSD is kept in a hidden partition where the backup installation of the usual Asus Linux lies. When you format the SSD to put Windows on it, the partition will be lost.
But your Asus was shipped with a recovery CD, so you could do the same stuff as you would do for Windows XP or W7 to put it on your thumbdrive and install from there.
January 28th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Wlan help. I have installed the driver for the Wlan and in device manager it shows the card as “802.aan Wireless LAN Card”
I can not see any wireless networks!
Im running your exact configuration BUT I am on a Asus eeepc 1000. Installing it on the 8 gig SSID.
Please help if you can
January 28th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
@Strobe:
Windows recognizes the card and shows a wireless connection? Or isn’t even the WLAN connection there?
If the connection is there and you can’t find networks in the Wireless Network Connection window it is a problem with your network range I think. Does it work at the same place with WinXP/Linux?
January 28th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Update:
I am not sure why, but after a few restarts it is connecting to a network. There is still an issue though.
I believe it is connecting to my router, but it doesnt let me chose the connection. My neighbors have wireless that I usually see from my room but the connection program in the lower right doesnt show any networks.
It just shows “Currently connected to: Network” and it has the public bench next to it. I dont seem to be able to change it to a ‘home’ network. Although I can connect to my other computers. . . any ideaS?
January 28th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Never heard of that. Ask in a Vista forum, perhaps they have ideas.
January 28th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
thanks anyways! This tutorial rocked!
January 31st, 2009 at 4:44 am
[...] is a GREAT post on how to shrink Windows 7 to get it to fit on netbooks with 4GB [...]
February 2nd, 2009 at 10:46 pm
I have used these instructions (minus the creation of the even smaller ISO) to install the Windows 7 Beta on my Acer AspireOne with an 8GB SSD. Initial install left me with 1.73GB of free hard drive space. After running through the posted clean up items I’m at 4.65GB free hard drive space. WiFi is working with no extra tweaks/drivers. I don’t at this point whether I’d say it’s running “snappy” or not, but it is running and seems to be fairly stable.
Thanks for everyone for the helpful posts and tips.
March 6th, 2009 at 1:06 am
I have a little over a Gig free space after using this method for my ASUS EEEpc 1000, 8gig SSHD.
I have a 802.11n Wireless LAN Card. Its a Ralink. and im using Driver 1.1.2.0 which is the only one I could get to work.
Question: The config file leaves connecting to a network completely dependent on the computer. I can not choose what network I want to use and I can not connect to networks with WEP/WPA security.
Any help on how to fix this or change the config file of the ISO? Id rather have a bit less space and control of this.
March 6th, 2009 at 4:06 am
Just some more info. I had made a previous post about my Wifi not working. It’s not that it doesnt work, I just cant view other available networks. Was this something you disabled?
Can I just install this somehow or will I need a restart?
When I tried to upgrade my ralink wifi card, i lost wifi.
March 6th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Hi,
I didn’t exclude exclude a feature which is necessary for a working wifi connection so I didn’t experienced this kind of problem. Did you try a different wifi card/USB dongle to make sure that the wifi stack itself works? Can you connect to a LAN via cable?
March 13th, 2009 at 1:15 am
Thanks for the timely response, sorry I didn’t check it sooner.
I have not tried a different wifi card, I am trying to find someone with one for me to test.
I can connect via LAN cable. And I get internet via WIFI.
It seems strange, when I see screen shots of WIN7 the network icon in the lower right looks like a signal meter. Mine looks like a monitor. So this could be a wrong driver? but when i tried different ralink drivers I lost internet connection.
Basically when you click it, it will not give me the option to selected a different router. I cant see any other routers. I know there are other connections here.
I am using the EEEpc 1000. I dunno if its just a different card or something.
Any ideas?
If you wanted to be a badass and take a look, team viewer makes it easy for us to connect PC’s
March 13th, 2009 at 4:04 am
So i just tried to use these drivers. The system says they work, however it cannot get a wireless signal. When I reinstall the first driver (1.1.2.0) it gets a signal.
The other drivers are
IS_AP_STA_RT2860_D-1.2.1.0_VA-2.1.2.0_RU-2.1.9.0_VA-2.2.4.0_AU_2.0.9.0_VA-2.0.9.0_111108_1.0.6.0_Free
and
IS_AP_STA_RT2860_D-1.2.0.0_VA-2.1.1.0_RU-2.1.8.0_VA-2.2.3.0_AU_2.0.8.0_VA-2.0.8.0_100808_1.0.5.0_NH
the driver that worked:
from a 901 driver pack. version: 1.1.2.0
it is a ralink driver
If you have a driver I should try, please instruct. I would really like to get full function out of this ISO
March 13th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
I have no idea actually, with my Eee PC 900 it worked even during the installation. W7 asked me while installing whether I want to connect to a wireless network and download some patches, and it worked.
April 20th, 2009 at 4:22 am
Make Windows 7 fit on EEE PC 4 GB SSD (and Higher)…
This is a great tutorial, for yer Winsnobs. It will make teh beta of windowz 7 fit on a 4 gb ssd drive, so it will fit on almost any netbook. read it, and comment.
http://www.multimolti.com/blog/2009/01/09/shrink-windows-7-to-fit-on-asus-eee-pc-4gb-sdd/…
May 28th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
[...] 06:49 PM Shrink Windows 7 to fit on Asus Eee PC 4GB SDD or any netbook
June 28th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
[...] For those with netbooks with 4GB drives, here’s a great article on how to shrink Windows 7. [...]
September 4th, 2009 at 5:54 am
Hi, I wonder if I have missed something during this step – “Afterwards click ‘Tasks’ on the left pane and choose only the two options ‘Components’ and ‘Bootable ISO’. Leave the other entries as they are. Then hit ‘Preset’ on the menubar, choose load, select the *.ini file you downloaded (’Windows_7_EEE_900′) and press ‘Components’ on the left pane. You can close the ‘Compatibilty’-popup. Make sure to select all languages except the one which fits to your keyboard. Then you will see a popup which offers three different methods of creating your installation. Choose ‘Rebuild One (Ultimate)’ and hit OK”
as the ISO image was closer to 2GB to 1GB and my installed size (after disabling hiberbation, page file, etc) was 4.7GB.
The only thing that i “checked for removal” using VLite were the language options – was i supposed to tick more boxs for removal of other compents?
By the way , I also ran vLite from another Win7 machine – should this make a difference?
Cheers, and great tutorial
September 4th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
@Nick:
Well, you probably forgot to select the ini file. This file contains information about which components to include, and if you didn’t use it, everything will be included except of the languages you unchecked.
September 5th, 2009 at 6:24 am
Hi Lennart
hmmm, when it asked me to hit ‘Preset’ on the menubar, choose load, then select the *.ini file (Windows_7_EEE_900), the program did not list this file per se, so i typed in the name Windows_7_EEE_900 as text – the config file was saved in the vLite directory as specified…but maybe this was the problem….are you saying the when you hit “preset” it should automatically search for the ini file?
Thanks for your quick answer before!
September 5th, 2009 at 11:39 am
I don’t think it automatically searches for the INI file. You will have to select the file yourself, there should be an “Open File” dialog window.
September 13th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Having a problem with this. I can’t seem to load the INI file because when I click Preset the “load” button is grayed out. What am I doing wrong?
September 13th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Sorry, no idea what may be wrong… maybe you can ask in a vLite forum.
September 13th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Also, when I ran vLite it didn’t mention anything about WAIK.
September 15th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Okay, I got the Windows shrink to work, but now when I try to install it says “The product key entered does not match any of the Windows images available for installation. Enter a different product key.” I didn’t even enter a product key though! Any ideas?
September 16th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
This is really weird. I didn’t enter any product key during installation as well, it asked me later on when Windows 7 was running. How far do you come? Can you finish installation and see the desktop? If yes, you may try one of the activators available in the Internet. If not, check if you removed a critical feature in vLite which destroys the CD key check.
September 16th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
I can’t even get to the installation process. However, I tried selecting Windows 7 Professional in vLite (as that’s what I’m using) and didn’t get the error, but it says files are missing.
September 16th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
I assume the Windows 7 version you’ve got is Ultimate, so you should also install Ultimate. As it says above in the text:
“When asked for the Windows Edition, make sure to choose ‘Windows 7 ULTIMATE’. Choosing anything else will mess up the installation.”
September 17th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
But I don’t have Ultimate, I have Professional.
September 17th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
This tutorial won’t work with Professional, I’m sorry. Try to get Ultimate somewhere, since Windows 7 hasn’t been released officially yet, I assume you got your Professional from dubious sources, so get Ultimate from there, too
September 18th, 2009 at 4:29 am
That’s unfortunate. I got Professional from MSDNAA.
September 18th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
That’s bad… you may ask in a vLite forum about this problem, the solution I explained here works only for Ultimate… or wait 5 weeks and get the Ultimate legally.
November 1st, 2009 at 11:49 pm
Hi, I formatted the 4g partition and installed win7 on it without first installing to the bigger partition. I has roughly the same size of iso, 1,3 GB. I wonder why it is necessary to backup the partition and and then restore it?
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Where did you get a 1.3GB Windows 7 ISO? Which version is it? The Ultimate is around 2.3GB before and 4.5GB after installation, that’s why this tutorial is needed. If you have Starter or Home Basic, then it may be as small as yours.
November 8th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
Tyler, I have the same problem with vLite 1.2, the PRESET LOAD option is greyed out, has anyone else resolved this?
http://www.msfn.org/board/cant-load-preset-t137891-pid-882872.html#entry882872
I’ve done the above to no avail.
November 9th, 2009 at 12:42 am
im an idiot, instructions did say to copy the .ini to presets subfolders … works now
November 30th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
I have an admittedly idiotic question. I have a disk with windows 7, an Asus eeepc 900, and a computer running XP. I want to load windows 7 on the eeepc.
So can I use the XP machine to slim down Windows 7? If so, (I’m assuming I can) should I use xLite, since that’s the XP version of the program?
Secondly, can’t I just use a USB cd drive and load the full version of 7 onto the eeepc without going through all of this?
Thanks alot for your help-
November 30th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
@Laura:
Yes to all your questions. You can just connect the USB DVD drive and install the full version of Windows 7 from your DVD, but that will need around 10GB, and since you have the Eee PC 900, you probably only have 12+4 or 16+4. Thus it will only fit on the large SSD and there won’t be much space left.
If you don’t have an external DVD drive (I don’t have any) you should use the tutorial I wrote about putting W7 on a thumbdrive and make it bootable.
If you want to install W7 on your Eee PC 900, but don’t want to waste 10GB for it, then use this tutorial to shrink it to less than 4GB so that it will fit on the small SSD and your large 12/16GB one will be free.
December 26th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
I think I did something wrong for the final steps. I’m now getting the error message each time I boot up:
“NTLDR is missing
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart”
I followed the instructions as closely as I could, and I have a feeling this error message is related to the ‘Resize target partition’ steps. Acronis did not give the same prompt about some 200MB partition, and didn’t ask me to delete it. Specifically, I’m referring to (quoted from instructions):
“During the next step choose ‘Resize target partition’, and the select the space AFTER the 200MB partition. Don’t delete this partition because Windows 7 needs it for start up. You should be asked for that so DON’T choose the option ‘Delete partitions on target media’.”
Could this be the reason I’m seeing the NTLDR error message? If so, does anyone have a solution to fixing this? Any help would be much appreciated.
December 30th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Yeah, NTLDR means that somehow the computer can’t find the correct files to boot. This may be due to that missing 200MB partition. I never encountered that problem, so I don’t know the solution, but try to get that partition from somewhere. E.g. reinstall Windows 7 and see if it’s there (search for “Disk Management” in the start menu search box), because Windows 7 can’t work without it, i guess.
January 28th, 2010 at 8:12 pm
thanks for this great tutorial. i was able to install the os on the 4gb sdd without using acronis. is there a chance to this with home basic? i would asume that it needs even less disc space.
January 28th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
this method only works with ultimate. you may search for a tutorial with home basic on other sites
January 28th, 2010 at 8:18 pm
thanks for your fast reply
February 4th, 2010 at 12:49 am
Hi, I am somewhat of a novice when it comes to this, but trying to get a slimmed down version of Ultimate for my Asus EEE 700. I went through the tuturial and got to the point where I was creating the Vlite version of the ISO, but Vlite keeps erroring out in the finalization phase. As I am just looking for the final product (slimmed down ISO), is that something that could be shared rather than everyone duplicating the process? I have a legal FPP key, but just can’t get to the slimmed down ISO. Please let me know.
thx, Brian
February 4th, 2010 at 9:23 am
Hi,
there are quite a lot so-called “lite” versions of Windows 7 floating around the net. These aren’t officially by Microsoft, but slimmed down by other users and seem to work according to different forums. You may try searching for “windows 7 lite 7600″ on your favorite torrent site, but please keep in mind that some people may regard it to be illegal. In my opinion, it should be legal since you have a legal key.