Wired News: Windows Got Ya Down? Try a Remix

Joel Johnson:

There's a lot of extra space on a standard Windows XP CD, especially if the downloadable disc images (the standard format for distributing pirated operating systems) are designed to be burned to DVD. That leaves room to add a whole library of complementary software -- even multiple versions of Windows.

Alright, so I'm a little late getting to this, but with an impending reinstall of XP, this stuff suddenly gained a lot of interest to me. The two most interesting remixed versions of XP seem to be Windows Lite (with all the IE, outlook, MSN Messenger, etc. stripped out), and Windows Nemesis (which does all that, and includes a TON of pirated software). Frankly, I think Microsoft had better get some ideas from this for their release of Windows Vista; real users don't WANT internet exploder, or email with security holes big enough to drive a Hummer through. We want installs that boot fast, don't eat ram, and let us use the programs we want to.

And steal stuff. Hence the DRM hate.

Technorati tags: windows, piracy, remix culture