Basically I stripped out all of the configuration utilities, control panel applets, desktop extensions, etc.

The downside is that if you make heavy use of those dialogs, then you'll be forced to find alternative ways to accomplish the same tasks. However, 90% of the tasks you'd use those dialogs for can be accomplished using built-in Windows tools. For example, the Realtek HD speaker configuration can be changed through the Sound and Devices control panel, and resolution (and external displays) can be changed using the Display Properties settings tab, etc.

It also has the added bonus of removing ALL of the HKLM\M\W\C\Run tasks; providing faster startup times and lower overall resource utilization. It ALSO has the lower-level benefit of not having to load as many memory resident modules which are NOT present in Task Manager; mainly support DLLs for the control panel extensions. Overall, the system feels slightly "snappier", and actually appears to be slightly more reliable. Had no issues with 3d apps / games yet, although if anyone else notices anything feel free to let me know and I'll see if I can work out why.

Overall, the entire driver package for the EeePC is now around 22mb uncompressed, rather than the 160mb of stuff downloaded (and extracted) from the Asus support site.

Okay, I'm just putting together a new test package with only the bare Realtek driver and NONE of the support DLLs (had a couple core ones left over), if that goes well I'll update the package and upload it. Will probably have it up in about 20/30 minutes.

I've put together a revision 2 package which trims a little bit more fat from the drivers, bringing the total size down to 20mb flat rather than the 23mb of the previous release. I'll upload it in a little bit, but until then, here's some screenshots to tide you over.

Before adding drivers (removed all previously installed/nLited drivers hence them being categorized):


After installation of drivers:


After first reboot, notice no additional memory-resident processes:


Devices will now be managed through the standard Windows dialogs:


Driver packages significantly lighter compared to standard releases:

Last edited by Dev Corvin (2008-03-21 9:52:44 am)

Looks to be very nice work, are you going to upload the second pack?

Is this for the 2G, 4G, or 8G?
As the 2G and 4G differ with a couple drivers.

Also, anyone tried Driver Magician yet to back up their drivers?

4G is good enough IMO, the 2G's should stick with Linux anyway
Not just for speed but also cost of the windows OS and hence total pricing ..
Awaiting the $199 1G though !

ps. I have the 4G with 2GB RAM ofcourse

Never mind, answered my own question by reading your readme file. It appears the UAA hotfix fixes this. Going to test it out today!

Yeah; basically one of the Unknown Devices listed in Device Manager on a vanilla install isn't the Realtek audio itself, but the UAA chipset connection. You install that by right right clicking, and selecting "Update Driver", then pointing it at the UAA folder in the driverpack. After that's installed, it'll detect the Realtek device and prompt for a driver, then you point it to the RealtekHD folder and it'll install.

If you slipstream the files into the installation media, however, it'll do all of this as part of Windows Setup without any user intervention whatsoever. The UAA hotfix in this pack is packaged as an INF and driver files rather than as a KB hotfix as the KB release would only install on SP2 rather than SP3; the version in this package can be installed on either.

I'm integrating the drivers into my nLite install, so I will report back with results

I just ran a test slipstream install with the driver package included in the installation media (Add multiple driver folder in nLite 1.4.5), and noticed a slight issue which I'm fairly certain is an nLite issue and not one with the sources themselves...

On first boot, there'll be a "PCI device" listed in System Devices; this is the UAA connection. If you tell Windows to automatically find the correct driver, it'll detect it as a UAA device, install it, and then detect and install the Realtek drivers. Seems strange that you have to take this additional manual step but either way it all seems to work in the end :-P

This is great work, a job well done. I need a little help to get started.  I know how to strip feature out in nlite. But what is slipstream? How do I slipstream this driver package into the nlite package?

Thank you!, I am going to slipstream this driver pack in. In the mean time let me backup my stock Xrandros first before I attempt to install XP.

Last edited by notenought (2008-03-22 5:25:25 pm)