VDI is getting more attention every day. Companies are transforming their Windows XP installations into VDI desktops. We all aim to get as many XP installations on an ESX host. When preparing my testlab I was not amused to see that XP after a default install, without any fancy stuff is quite memory hungry. Without any SP or updates, XP is running quite low on memory, but once you install SP2 and a number of updates, your default install will take much more memory. For a VDI environment it would be great if we could make XP a little less memory consuming.
Using nLite you can easily build XP installations that are much smaller than your default install, not only in RAM usage but also in disk usage. With nLite you walk through a wizzard that helps you to disable unnecessary services, remove unwanted programs or accessories and remove unneeded drivers. Many drivers included in XP are not needed if you’re working with VDI desktops. The hardware will never change, apart from a VMware Tools update now and then. So, we can leave out all the drivers for other devices, except for USB. Leave USB in to be able to connect external devices into your VDI desktop.
To learn more and to read the entire article please refer to the following page, Building a great VDI ready Windows