98lite is a utility made by Shane Brooks in order to remove components from Windows 98 and Windows Me, which Microsoft claims are integrated and non-removable. Brooks first made a method of removing Internet Explorer in response to the claim that IE is a non-removable and integrated into Windows in the antitrust case.

History

Shane Brooks believes that Windows 98 has many advantages to its predecessor, Windows 95, besides the appearance. However, he does not believe that forcing Internet Explorer to be installed at all times is a fair compromise. He discovered a way of removing IE manually and presented it to the Department of Justice as evidence that Microsoft is monopolizing the browser market. Later, he made a series of programs collectively called 98lite. Its main selling point was the removal of Internet Explorer, which was one of the programs in 98lite. A second program can also swap the Explorer shell with the Windows 95 Explorer, which is less buggy, less resource-consuming (thereby faster), and with most of the features of the default Windows 98 Explorer. Another third program converted "required" components into addable and removable options. With version 2.0 of 98lite, the three programs were merged and combined into a single, easy to use program. The IE remover was combined with the components converter, making IE uninstallable and reinstallable with the Add/Remove Programs control panel applet with the other components. Version 3.0 added support for Windows 98 Second Edition, a newer and less buggy version of Windows 98 with Internet Explorer 5.0, which made using 98lite 1.0 through 2.0 impossible. The current 4.x line has many improvements, including less bugs caused by 98lite and support for Windows Me.

Alternatives to 98lite

Currently, there is no known replacement for 98lite's functionality. Thus, this makes people pay approximately $40 for removing the "bloat" from Windows 98/Me. There is an Embedded Windows 9x company that will use the same concept as 98lite to make Windows 98 and Me embedded chips with small sizes, down to 8 megabytes [1].

Windows NT component removal

With the success of 98lite, Shane Brooks decided to make a similar functionality to 98lite. It can remove similar mandatory components from Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Unlike 98lite, 2000-XPlite will not install Windows without the components. Also unlike 98lite, alternatives to 2000-XPlite already exist. Though in reverse, for they remove components from install instead from an already installed Windows.

External links

• LitePC - Home of 98lite and 2000-XPlite.
• GUI Gallery - Screenshots of 98lite on Windows 98 and Windows Me available.
• nLite - Removal of Windows 2000, XP, and 2003 components at install
• Vorck.com - Manual removal of Windows 2000 components at install.