I don't know what components you were referring to as uninstallable in
Windows Vista that aren't in XP. You mentioned Windows Media Player -
that wasn't uninstallable in any supported fashion in Windows XP. If
you're asking why the hack methodology to do such is now harder to access,
I would speculate that probably because it's relatively important for a
Microsoft system to be relatively stable, and there's no fleet of testers
that is working on verifying that each particular variant Frankenstein's
Monster system is going to perform excellently. =)
As Mamamegs already pointed out, there's policies to limit or turn off
access to pretty much everything you mentioned. This provides you your
solution ("employees can't access N") while giving me my solution ("N
still works for me") on the same system, while still enabling the greatest
amount of test coverage on the same common set of Windows components.
Every particular supported variant install or configuration of Windows
"gets" to be tested extensively - your corporate stripped version would
then compete with John's stripped version versus Bubba's stripped version
for testing time, leaving the aggregate coverage less than through the
clean and actually fairly excellent management call not to randomize or
divert resources in order to accomplish minimal savings. Disk space is
relatively cheap, lost time because Tester Y didn't have adequate time to
cover Case 436 is expensive. You want Windows to work, I want Windows to
work. We don't get to that point most effectively when you randomize
people.
It should take you about five minutes to learn how to shut down these
'unwanted bundled apps'-
* launch gpedit.msc (Group Policy Editor)
* Computer Configuration : Administrative Templates : Windows Components
That's everything but the WMP setting, now you just need to deploy. This
should be pretty straight-forward.
If you're seriously interested in your own really personalized version of
Windows, that's what Windows Embedded is for, more or less. That's a
bunch of people who are dedicated to providing the interesting
Frankenstein's Monster versions of Windows powering various specific
scenarios. This provides the people who really need it their specific
solution while not confusing people about what exactly a "Windows Vista"
system experience would be like. =)
Anyways, I think you get it. The Group Policy Editor should give you what
you're looking for here.
Cheers,
-Zach
--
Speaking for myself only.
See
http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
