After every fresh installation of Windows, there’s a usual suite off applications I load on to get the computer ready for use.

In almost every case, the first application I load is an application to trim the fat, so to speak, from Windows. That application is XPLite. There are both free and professional variants, and while the professional version is pretty inexpensive considering it’s utility, it’s not practical to purchase a license for every client. That’s not a problem though because the free version is still quite useful! This neat little application allows you to remove some unused features from Windows XP and 2000, such as bundled sound clips, movie clips, pictures and even some applications, such as the migration suite. The level of control gets pretty fine grained, even allowing you to remove applications such as notepad (I use free GVim anyway), document templates (those are in the right-click menu) and many, many other little things that can clutter up Windows. With this application, it’s quite possible to strip 200 megabytes off of your Windows installation, and not even realize your missing anything! If you do miss it though, the removal process is completely reversible, just check the items you can restored, pop in your Windows disk and it’s back! No harm, no foul. For those of us who are ultra-picky, the professional edition is one of the few applications that can remove Internet Explorer from your computer, for real, instead of just removing it’s shortcut. The control is fine grained enough to allow you to remove the application but leave the rendering engine behind, as a lot off applications use the Trident engine to power their interfaces, or remove the engine as well for a completely IE-free PC! I know some of you are jumping for joy on that one. This application is definitely worth a look for anyone interested in gaining a little (ok, a lot) more control over what’s on their computers.