Windows 7 Professional Super Lite

About this release

There is still a large population of machines that will never run a current system: shop floor terminals driving old instruments, laptops with two gigabytes of memory, test benches tied to hardware whose drivers stopped at this generation. This image exists for those machines. It is the Professional edition with the optional components stripped out, so the install footprint and the memory floor both drop sharply.

What comes out is the part nobody misses on a constrained machine: the media centre stack, the sample libraries, the tablet and speech components, the built in games and most of the wallpaper and theme content. What stays is the whole working system, including the group policy editor, remote desktop, the backup tools and the networking stack in full, so it behaves like the ordinary edition when you actually use it.

Installed weight is the headline. The system sits at a fraction of the usual disk footprint, idle memory use drops enough to matter on a machine with two gigabytes, and boot time on a mechanical drive improves noticeably because there is simply less to load. On older hardware the difference between this and a full install is the difference between usable and painful.

Setup is the standard sequence: write the image, boot, choose the partition and let it run. Both architectures ship in the same image, and the 32 bit build remains the right choice on anything with less than four gigabytes of memory. Driver coverage is aimed at the hardware generation this system belongs to rather than at current chipsets.

What it does

Professional feature set retained

Group policy, remote desktop, backup and full networking all present.

Reduced component set

Media centre, sample content, tablet and speech components removed to cut footprint.

Low memory floor

Idle use drops far enough to leave room on machines with two gigabytes.

Both architectures

The same image installs the 32 bit or 64 bit build.

Faster boot on mechanical drives

Less to load at start, which is the main complaint on older laptops.

Legacy driver coverage

Storage and network support aimed at the hardware generation this system serves.

Changed in this version

• Image rebuilt with the final cumulative rollup folded in.
• Additional storage controller drivers for older chipsets.
• Setup no longer stalls on machines with mixed partition tables.
• Component removal list revised so printing services stay intact.

System requirements

Install order

1. Write the image to a USB stick or burn it to a disc.
2. Back up anything on the target machine before starting.
3. Boot from the media and choose the architecture that suits the memory installed.
4. Install chipset and network drivers for the machine once the desktop comes up.

Worth knowing before you start

File details