Building HTPC looking for stripped down 7 with WMC


  1. darkstarsinner
    Posts : 31
    Win7 Pro
       New #1

    Building HTPC looking for stripped down 7 with WMC


    Okay so I figured sevenforums would be the place to get a little assistance with this. I just put together my first HTPC using some old/spare parts I had. I want to install a bare minimum Win7 that will boot directly to WMC. I have it set up now but it's the full Win7.


    Here's what I need to do:

    Stripped bare Windows 7 install (just a shell)
    Direct Boot WMC
    Hulu app
    Netflix app
    Blu-Ray program
    All possible Codecs for the various Movie files I already have
    Best performance possible
    Networking between HTPC and my desktop workhorse


    Here are my stats:

    HTPC:

    Phenom II 965 BE
    Corsair Dominator (8GB)
    MSI 880GM-E41
    OB GPU (will be swapping cards out when I order my new one for the desktop)
    Coolermaster 360 slim case
    250GB HDD (will be swapping in a 2TB soon)

    Workhorse:

    FX-8120 BE
    Corsair Vengeance (16GB)
    MSI 890fxa-GD70
    MSI Hawk 5770 Radeon
    60GB SSD (OS)
    2TB RAID0 (4x500GB HDD)



    Can anybody lend a hand here? I would greatly appreciate it.


    Also a would like to stream media from my Workhorse as I have almost 200GB of movies and really down't want to transfer them. Thanks all.
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  3. Everlong
    Posts : 3,322
    Windows 8.1 Pro x64
       New #2

    You can use vLite to customise a Windows installation before installing. I've not used it myself, and I'm pretty sure it works with Windows 7, but I think you have a Windows 7 DVD then it creates a .iso image from it and lets you customise what you want/don't want on it, and I think you can add stuff to it as well. You can then burn the .iso back to a blank DVD, or setup a USB pen drive to install from.

    There's a pretty thorough guide here, worth a try: How to create a custom Windows Vista Installation DVD – Simple Help

    You can just add WMC to the startup section in msconfig so it loads up as Windows starts.

    If your HTPC and Workhorse are on the same network then you can easily just stream over the network through WMC to watch the media.
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  4. darkstarsinner
    Posts : 31
    Win7 Pro
    Thread Starter
       New #3

    I'll give that a try again. I ran it earlier to a usb drive but it wouldn't boot.
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  6. Everlong
    Posts : 3,322
    Windows 8.1 Pro x64
       New #4

    Does it set the USB drive up to be bootable? Once the .iso is made, try using the Windows 7 USB download tool to make the USB drive bootable and copy the .iso to it, or you can do it manually through command prompt and open the .iso and copy and paste the files to it.
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  7. darkstarsinner
    Posts : 31
    Win7 Pro
    Thread Starter
       New #5

    I think I've got it all set up. There are still a few tweaks I would like to see but it runs pretty smooth for now.
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