Running bots using minimal resources (Part 1 of 6)

Hello, on these series I will help you on how to setup a bot or multiple bots.
My main focus will be not on how to configure and install everything, but on how to save as much memory and resources helping bot users with slower computers to experience a performance boost.

part 1  Virtual Machines
part 2  Operative System
part 3  Operative system Tweaks
part 4  Required software
part 5  Keeping resources to a minimum
part 6  Hardware recommendations and Conclusion

Part 1: Virtual Machines
If you Run a single bot and have a spare computer just siting in a corner running the bot for you, that's great, but to must bot owners and users that run multiple bots off the same machine, Virtual machines is the best answer.

In this Part I will be guiding on how I've configured my VMWare Workstation 7.0.0 (I know there are newer versions but I picked this one for its extra compatibility with main Operative systems and lower memory usage). There are free alternatives in the market if you can't buy this one, which work in a very similar way.

(Please note that a full version of VMware might not be free and/or require license keys, VMware is not affiliated with or endorsed by Wizards of the Coast or MTGO Library)

Creating the VM

I started by creating a "blank disk" VM (I don't use VM's auto install)  with 4GB Hard Drive (this is more than enough) where I would install my own version of Windows XP (I will cover this on on Part 2).  I choose to have 1.5gb ram for each VM (because I have 16gb total) but 1GB should do fine as you will see in the further parts of this guide.

After creating the VM I proceeded with removing all the unwanted hardware in it, I've removed the Sound card, USB controller(as long as you dont want to use a USB Mouse/keyboard manually on the VM) and Floppy drive. If you have a Multi-core CPU I recommend choosing your VM's as having only 1 processor and 1 core per processor as this will increase performance and reduce your CPU's usage.

This is it for today because Part 2 will be a bit complex. Soon I will guide you on how to get a lightweight windows into your new Virtual machine, using minimal amounts of memory, disk space and CPU usage.