Sleepy P

I have created a Google Doc containing a list of all the Windows Components that RT7 Lite can be used to remove, along with their sizes as reported by RT 7 Lite. I found that RT7 Lite is useful, but its interface is somewhat clunky, and you can't copy & paste anything from it. This makes keeping track of what you're doing more difficult. So, after a mind-numbing day of typing and formatting, I give you a Publicly accessible document that you can use as a starting point in your own project documentation, if you want. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BUfUIa8mNuz-lDU6Kfnbev9iltj9JJakge55kc6s7yc/edit I may end up also making a spreadsheet version, haven't decided if there would be a reason to do that yet. Let me know if you find any problems or inaccuracies in this document of course -EDIT- Of course this list is based on the current "beta" version of RT7 Lite, not the "stable" version...

Well, well, how disappointing. The hidden updates are not captured with SysPrep, even when I did a CopyProfile from the Administrator account I set up. That's somewhat disappointing, but oh well. It might be do-able view a registry capture of some sort. It's a low priority for me, since I evidently cut too deep in RT7Lite and broke some stuff in my current Windows install. Will post about it once I have a working method...

I'm working on finishing up my installer, and part of the plan is to re-capture the cleaned up state to a new WIM file. I'll post here if hiding those packs is saved during the process (one can hope )

Hey guys. I'm having a bear of a time finding any information on this particular issue, given the nature of it. My issue is simple: on a fresh install of the Windows 7 I am building, I always get 34 language packs offered to me as Optional Updates. My goals with this install are to make something as small and automated as possible, and I'll be doing this as an US - English only install, so I don't want or need these packs. What is the correct way to signify to Windows Update to not offer these to me? When Googling and forum searching, I get tons of helpful results... for integrating language packs. I can't find anything on preventing them from being offered. I'm working from the Windows 7 x64 SP1U MSDN source. Is this as dumb as setting up my AutoUnattended.xml with the right locale settings, or what?

Just wanted to post an update in case any other confused n00bs like me find this forum. I have almost completed my project after a fairly time-consuming series of tests. The process that appears to have worked out well for me is this: -I started with a stock Windows 7 x64 SP1U image (from MSDN). The other ISO I got from Digital River a while back and its SHA1 checksum didn't match anything I could verify, so I figured it'd best to be safe. -EDIT: I forgot I ran through the process to make the MSDN "compatible" with 7lite & RT7Lite as documented here: -I proceeded to integrate in all the .msu update packages I had via DISM. There are other ways to do it, but for learning purposes I went that route. -Booted the resulting "updated" ISO in VMWare Workstation and then went into Audit Mode and installed the 6 or so Windows Updates that were found as new. Then checked "Generalize" and Shutdown the resulting install. -Booted up Hiren's Boot CD on the same VM and used GimageX to capture a WIM of the system off to a USB flash drive attached to the VM. -Imported the resulting "Fully up to date" image into a new installer. -Ran RT7Lite on that installer to successfully trim out things like IE without screwing up the Windows Update state. This is where I'm at now. My plan is to finish up this image by adding some applications and customizations in audit mode and then re-capture again. Audit Mode is AWESOME!

That looks freaking sweet! I'm definitely adding that to my development setup!

That's part of why I figured it'd be good to learn. I am only going to be using the installers I build for myself and my family, so not a big worry. From my additional experiments, it looks like the 3rd party utilities actually mount the current WIM and then modify its contents directly, which is how they "remove" stuff like the sample media, wallpapers, etc. Is that right?

Good stuff all around! The one thing I haven't found any explicit explanation of yet is the process by which the 3rd party tools like RT 7 Lite accomplish the removal of things like IE and Windows Mail. I'm guessing they mount up the main install image and then do stuff to the file system & registry? Also, for a good personal image to use as a starting point, I might want to boot into Audit Mode and get everything ready to go, then re-capture that image? Can you that kind of thing within a VM? -EDIT- May have found answer to my own question. Here's an article on adding / removing stuff from a WIM: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744559(v=ws.10).aspx However, I'm pretty sure this is just a way of automating the stuff you can do with "Add / Remove Windows Features". If that is so, it won't be useful in reducing the install footprint right? One of my goals is to trim the garbage out to make my install more SSD friendly

It seems like back in the XP days, the "official" tools weren't great and didn't lend themselves to doing the kind of stuff I wanted to do. I suspect due to the much revised installation model that started in Vista, the official stuff appears to be much much nicer. I began fooling around with the Microsoft Deployment Kit, which already seems very good. Of course, its going to involve a lot of reading and learning for me to be able to decode the Microsoftian language used throughout into what stuff actually means, but its all good stuff to know. I do IT work professionally, and in the past most of my "just for fun" hobby projects have ended up being things I used at work later on, so this could easily fall into that category as well.

I'll definitely take a look. I may end up having to simply disable IE rather than remove it, which I suppose is OK. Thanks man

Hey guys. I have been banging my head against the wall on this Windows 7 project for a couple weeks now, so I figured I'd ask this forum since its basically the best place for such information. I am trying to build a customized Windows 7 SP1 x64 installer. My goal is like pretty much anyone, I would think: I want all Windows Updates to be installed "out of the box", and want to reduce the overall disk footprint as much as possible and remove the normal stuff I don't want / need (IE, IIS, Windows Mail, etc). I was big into the custom Windows XP scene several years ago, and it seems like things are a bit more fractured and difficult with Windows 7. So far, the least install-breaking utility I have found is the 9-month old "beta" of RT 7 Lite. I have tried various combinations of it + RT7 Booster, but I basically never had RT7 Booster do anything but break the installer, so I stopped using that. It seems that via RT7Lite I am able to integrate virtually all available Windows Updates, provided they are integrated in the correct order. However, I haven't worked out if there's a proper way to have IE removed and still have the system not ask about KB2530548. I know there are a few things that MUST be installed after the OS (like Malicious SW Removal Utility and .NET 4.0), but barring those, is it possible to be "fully" up to date, have no broken Windows Updates, AND have no IE on the system? I don't mean installed-but-disabled, I mean no IE installation. Any suggestions would be quite welcome At this point I've collected together a local copy of virtually every Win7 x64 update since SP1, the really nice "slim" dotNETFX Setup, various WAIKs, and some other utilities. However, I've found the "scene" is a bit confusing, with several tools and batch files purporting to do what I want having been released and then apparently abandoned, leaving them to only kinda work. "Oh yeah, that doesn't work since SP1..." "Oh hey follow these instructions:" (instructions look like they've been run through Babelfish 3 times...) Help me, MSFN board! You're my best hope!

that doesn't work. this is because %systemdrive% resolves to a drive letter followed by a colon. you cannot have a colon in a filename, so the bat points at a file which doesn't exist, and then your reg file is not imported...

as i said above, i pack my files into self-extracting solid RAR archives. RAR compression is quite good. for instance, my drivers collection was about 92 MB uncompressed, and 45 MB compressed. i think i opened up a good 80 MB by using compression, which means 80 MB more stuff can be put on the CD. i have no idea why you'd have issues with RAM, i never have, even testing on a Virtual PC with 64 MB of RAM....

wurd

thats a tricky one... built into XP is the taskkill command, which shuts down processes. you call it like this taskkill.exe /F /IM targetprocess.exe w the tricky part is the timing. on unattended.msfn.org they have this file sleep.exe which, when called, simply runs for x number of seconds. you could use a start /wait sleep to put a controlled delay between the installer and the killprocess. the trick is getting the timing right so that it allows the installer to fully process but cuts it prior to reboot...