Microsoft got to be kidding 16GB

When doing a systemstate backup on a very small Activedirectory less than 25 users no special things at all.

This backup takes up 500mb in windows 2003 I think this is huge.

But When I did the same backup of the systemstate in Windows 2008 16GB

Microsoft must be kidding, who wrote this backup of the Active directory?

What where they thinking, I don't have a clue what needs to be backuped so lets backup all

the files on the server?

Please someone build a Active directory substitute so we can get rid of this crap...