MacBook Air / Parallels / Slimdown setup advice
 

Macbook Air / VMWare Parallels Questions / Slimdown

FT Travel.

I get my Macbook Air (MBA) late tonight and have limited time before my Transpac trip starting TH. I really want to just bring the MBA.

I need to 1) cut fat from the MBA and 2) install XP and apps - suggestions please

1) Cut fat - What programs are there on the MAC to remove bloat. Removing excess languages and stripping universal binaries?

2) install XP and apps
I do not have the MBA superdrive. I do have a IBM Thinkpad. Can I

a) install VMWare Parallels on the Thinkpad.
Create the Windows XP image.
Install my tax software (Quicken, TurboTax)
Compress the image <-- How?
Install VMWare Parallels on MBA
Copy compressed XP image to MBA.
done?

Thanks much.

You can save enough space to matter by getting rid of language support you don't need in all your application packages. I'm not sure you want to do it when you're short of time, though:

Navigate to each application in the Applications folder. (Some apps are at the top level in that folder, others inside folders within it.)

Control-click (or right-click if you're using an external mouse with two or more buttons) on the package. Select "Show Package Contents" from the drop-down menu.

Open the Contents folder, then the Resources folder inside it.

You'll usually find some folders with the suffix ".lproj." The name of each will be either a language (e.g., "Dutch.lproj") or a two-letter code (e.g., "no.lproj" for Norwegian). Each can be well over a meg, though that depends on how many messages the app needs to localize. Toss any you don't expect to need.

The paranoid among us might want to make a copy of the application or of its folder, as applicable, first and test the app after you've tossed those files to make sure you didn't discard anything essential by mistake. The less paranoid figure that the process is pretty much foolproof, mistakes are unlikely and can probably be caught by a quick check of the Trash before you empty it, and that you can always reinstall software anyhow. Take your pick.

I'd suggest using something like Monolingual to remove the other languages
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/7758

At one point there was a similar app to remove printer drivers, but I cannot seem to find it.

You can migrate VM virtual machines, no problem there at all. That is probably the easiest way to get XP onto the MBA. However, that will take either VMware Workstation (cost) or Server (free) on the Thinkpad and VMware Fusion (cost) on the mac.

Another option that would work for either VMware Fusion or Parallels is to make an "image" of the XP CD and copy it over to the MBA, then use it as a virtual CD-ROM for the install. Making an .iso (image) from CD should be trivial on Windows, but since I've been MS free for over a year, I'd be hardpressed to name any programs (nero does come to mind).

Once you have an .iso of the XP disk, simply copy it over. Then in either VMWare Fusion or Parallels, edit the settings of the virtual machine such that the CD-ROM drive uses the image file, not the physical drive (it will be very apparet in the settings). Then you can install XP like normal.

Frankly, if you have VMware Workstation or Server for your Thinkpad, your plan is probably easier.

On a slight tangent .... VMware now offers a free tool called VMWare Converter that will actually image your thinkpad (or any windows machine) and turn it into a virtual machine that you can move to any other VMware product ... I've played with it and its pretty darned slick! Saves the pain of reinstalling applications, moving files, etc

Removing the languages manually is too much work. I use XSlimmer (shareware) or Trimmit (free) to remove unnecessary bloat (languages, FAT binaries, compresses TIFFs, etc.). Trimmit appears to be a bit smaller, but doesn't keep a database of blacklisted applications which do no like being trimmed. Overall I prefer XSlimmer, but it was $12, instead of free. Both can make backups of the application before the trimming in case something goes wrong.

XSlimmer saved about 2gb on the standard MB Air install.

I also saved several gigs by deleting iMovie, iDVD, Garage Band, unused printer drivers. Make sure to also delete their theme files in your application support folder.

In addition, the Alex voice also takes up about 640 mb of space. HD/System/Library/Speech/Voices

Apologies...its been a while since I used VMWare and I got some of the terms mixed up.

1) I'll trim fat when I get back

2) So please confirm
a) There is VMware Fusion for the MBA. And I can use it free for eval (30day something)
b) There is VMware Workstation for the Intel IBM Thinkpad and it is also free for eval.
c) If I get really lazy, I can use VM Convertor to take the bloated XP image from my Thinkpad and use that to start with...

Thanks

so does that mean I could image my Dell windows machine and run it through VMWARE on my MAC? :)

2a. Yes
2b. Yes
2c. Yes, don't be lazy.

a) yes
b) Yes - but there is also VMware Server that you can get for free and keep forever
c its not being lazy, it might actually save a lot of time

you got it!
I just imaged my work laptop.
When you run the converter you have three choices for the type of image
A) supports VMware Fusion and Workstation and Player (free)
B) Supports Server 1.0 (free) and older workstation
C) some old antiquated format

So its a little tricky in that if you want to use Server which is a free product for Linux and Windows you have to pick format B...but if you want to use VMware Fusion for the Mac you have to pick format A ...

Sorry if thats clear as mud...late night