[nimbu]

Having just got my WHS rebuilt, my media corretly scraped and XBMC installed onto my ATV 2 I am now looking a building a HTPC for the living room.

I have an old Antec Fusion case with a VFD so I will be using that.

I intend on using Windows as that is what I am most familiar with.

Some questions around windows

• I have 4GB of ram kicking around, any advantages of using 64 bit over 32?
  
• I only have a 30GB SSD, has anyone got any advice around building a suitable small windows installation using tools such at nlite or RT 7 lite?
  

The rest of my build is as follows, this is all hardware I have around the house:
Athlon IIx3 435
4GB RAM
DFI Lanparty JR Matx 780G chipset I think

Will the onboard graphics (Radeon HD 3 series) be enough?
If not I have a two options Geforce 430 or a Radeon 4550, which would be better?

My media is a mixture of low res avi /xvids all the way up to a couple of BR full iso's.

Thanks in advance.

Nims

[Jogee]

nimbu,

You wont see any difference between 64 bit over 32 bit, really. If I was out to buy a new OS, I would go with 64 bit, if for nothing other than future considerations. XBMC is 32bit on windows anyways.

As for the hardware questions, take a look at the requirements in this wiki section.

Ciao.

[nimbu]

Hi Jogee,

Thanks for that, the machine in question already has a license for 7 so its just a question of preference.

I did look at the wiki section and while all the options make the requirements I wanted to know if there is any reason to use any option in particular over the others. Guess ill stick with onboard for now and then review it later.

Has anybody had any experiences with tools named above in creating "lite" versions of the OS install?