blue4603

@ justibus Got it. I will implement the changes as soon as possible. Regards

@ justibus this article on MSDN, says So we need a sequence of characters instead of one, Like "@*" or "**" or "!!". Could you suggest something that might ease your development in Perl. Anything is OK with me. Thanks. I included them in the latest release 0.5.0b. Regards

@ justibus Regarding the registry with the* in its name. I am suggesting to replace the wildcard char from "*" to something else? What do you think? Regarding your suggestions, I will try tom implement them and I will update you with that. Regards

@ justibus Could you clarify the issue about localization? Regards

Hi, I will re-upload the images. Check back tomorrow. update: I re-uploaded the image. Regards

@justibus Thanks man for waiting. I read your comments and feedback. I am fixing the issues you reported. Let's discuss all the issues related to the components removal and the XML creator in this thread so we don't get confused. I will update you as soon as I can (Maybe after tomorrow). Thank you for your help. Regards

Hi, Great tool man. I thought no one was interested in the way I implemented components removal. Your tool will ease the components removal in 7customizer. I will test it once I get back home and then I will post my feedback. Thank you. Regards

@wintec That is really a stubborn bug. Anyways, I will fix it as soon as I get the chance. @TheWalrus I Will add more tweaks when I get some free time. Actually I tested it and the size reduced by 300 MB. @pedilover No still alive. It seems that time passes quickly without me noticing it. Anyways I was very busy with work. @Moonchilde Even if we still didn't have a fully customized Windows 7, the work done here will make it easier to develop a customization tool for Windows 8 Regards

@grammy OK. I think the preset function need to be reimplemented because it is very basic. I think it is better to save the preset in an XML. I will look into that. @magic12kenneth I directly remove the packages. For the updates, I am researching about it and will post my findings. @TheWalrus I will add more components as soon as I have spare time since there a lot of things that are in my mind and one of them will be ready in few days. @dmikester1 I now have an upgrade disc and I will try to customize it and report back to you. @wintec Thank you for providing feedback. I will fix this issue asap. In the mean time, I recommend using an untouched Windows 7 for customization. Regards

@beatmaster I didn't implement the translation for components. @ grammy Do you mean presets? It is already implemented. Regards

@ marcusj0015 No harm done. I will see what I could do in this weekend. @grammy Yeah I noticed it. I will try to find a solution for that. Thank you for your feedback. Regards

@marcusj0015 Provide it with proper wordings and respect and I will be very happy with your feedback. Go to 7Customizer thread and see that I built 7Customizer in a way that people could see what I am doing and provide feedback and share knowledge, Every feedback is important to me and I encourage anyone to provide his feedback as I did in 7Customizer. However, it needs to be in a proper and respectful way. Do n't worry I already started researching. Regards

@marcusj0015 You already did. There are proper ways to discuss. Thank you for your concern. Again I am telling you it is an ALPHA release. And no my work will not go down the tubes. Two words ALPHA RELEASE. Are you sure? Hooray for you. To do it properly I need to release alpha builds and beta builds to test,debug and discuss the issues. This is part of any software life cycle if you know what I mean. Also, you don't test an alpha build on your production system and every one knows that. Have a great day for you too. Sigh, I just spend ten precious minutes writing this post to say that this is an alpha release which is already written Clearly. Googling "How to deal with noobs" Regards

@grabben Waiting for your feedback @TheWalrus No this is an independent project. @MagicAndre1981 Even if he is right. Flaming and using bad words are characteristics of whiny noobs. Anyways, regarding the problem that he mentioned, I already tested 7CustomizerLive and then updated Windows 7 with all the updates and it worked fine. Regards

@ marcusj0015 First of all, watch your mouth. Second, do not flame . Third, did you read the post? It says an ALPHA release. Finally,who said that I do not know about the problem you mentioned? Regards

Hi, 7CustomizerLive is a tool for live Windows 7Customization. This means that you could remove components,integrate updates,integrate languages,tweaks and most of the things you do with 7Customizer on your Windows 7 directly. Read about 7Customizer here. Read about how I am implementing the component removal feature here Important note: Do not use this alpha release on the Windows you usually use. Test it on a virtual machine. The alpha build is just to show you what I am up to. It will not have the full functionality and it will contain bugs. It is still not organized so do not complain. It might not work with some of you at all so do not complain and wait for a beta or stable release. If it worked for you and found a bug, then attach your log.zip. Note In alpha 3 release I added the tweaks section. The tweaks are read from an XML file. It means that you could easily add your own tweak by following what I did in the XML. To use the alpha, 1. Start 7CustomizerLive with admin privileges. 2. Go to the Components tab and select the components you wish to delete a 3. Go to the tweaks tab and enable/disable the tweaks you like. 4. Go to the apply tab and click apply. 7Customizer features will be added to 7Customizer live gradually, so be patient. Version History: ===v0.1 Alpha 1=== 9/April/2011 An alpha build released. ===v0.1 Alpha 2=== 9/April/2011 Updated: The component removal feature ===v0.1 Alpha 3=== 20/August/2011 Added: Tweaks Regards 7CustomizerLive_0.1a2.rar 7CustomizerLive_0.1a3.rar

@Moonchilde There isn,t an option that specify the mount directory. @coprua This will be implemented in a future release. @mazxim Thank you. Regards

@ grabben It is not outdated. It is still supported by M$. Yeah I agree. However, if supporting vista will not take much effort, I do no see any reason not to support it even if it sucks , BSODs all the time , is slow, is incompatible , is full of problems and I really hate it. Hmmm after saying all of that, let's just forget about it and let it RIP. Regards

@myselfidem Very interesting. I didn't know that. So, that means 7Customizer supports customizing Windows Vista (In a certain level). Hmmmm. I think I need to try a couple of things and decide whether to add Vista (which I really hate) support or not. Thanks for the great feedback. @Judgement 7customizer is developed using C# in Visual Studio 2008. Regards

@Judgement 7Customizer is only for customizing Windows 7. You are using it to customize windows Vista. Regards

@Moonchilde Exactly. Also, if removing a certain component causes the system to be unstable we will be able to modify the XML of that components so that it will be safe to remove. For one guy yes. However, I am not the only guy who will work on the XMLs. Everyone could help. Regards

@coucou @myselfidem Guys, do not discuss issues unrelated to 7Customizer. There are reasons for this: First this thread is only for 7customizer. Second, it is better that you post a new topic about your issue so everyone could benefit from your result. currently, the issue you discussed and solved is buried inside this long post. Finally, it will add more pages to this post to an extent that I will not be able to manage it. Thank you for your understanding. Regards

@ mrookie You are most welcome. OK. I understood. I will add it on the to do list. Thank you for the suggestion. Hmmmm. Actually it doesn't matter. However, I recommend that the names should be small letters and contains only letters (No _ , - , space , ... etc). I will update the guide. Thank you. Hmmmmm. These will be decided later as the number of components increases. Thank you for your helpful feedback. @maxXPsoft I don't see any relationship between your post and the components XML. Regards

Hi, The components removal feature in 7Customizer uses XML files to determine how a component should be removed. These files are located in the folder "components" inside the folder "work". 7Customizer reads these XMLs and build the tree in the components tab, display information about the component from the XML and remove the component based on the information present in the XML. I chose this method because I wanted everyone to contribute to the component removal feature. So, in this guide I will explain everything related to the components XML. If you can contribute to 7Customizer, then create your XML and put it in a zip file and upload it. Make sure it is tested on an untouched Windows 7 installation source. Also make sure you test the installation. Request for mods: Kindly, make this post as sticky. Note: This guide requires basic knowledge of XML and knowledge of the components in Windows 7 and how they are structured. Also, some knowledge of Windows registry and how to manipulate it is required. To learn about XML: read about it here. Note: Never ask questions about XML, read first about it. Note: I will explain the XML with stickynotes.xml as an example. Tip: I recommend using Notepad++ with the plugin XML tools installed. Download Notepad++ here. The XMLTools here. Table of Contents: 1. XML Layout 2. Component element 3. Description element 4. DespendantComponent 5. NeededFor 6. Files 7. File 8. Directories 9. Directory 10. Registry 11. Keys 12. Key 13. Values 14. Value 15. How to identify files, directories and registry keys and values for a certain component. 16. Not implemented parts 17. Features to add 18. Tips 1. XML Layout The XML must first start with the root _7Customizer. Then the "Component" which has the following children: Description, DependantComponenets ,NeededFor, Files,Directories,Registry. 2. Component element The component tag has the following attributes: name: The name of the component requiredForStableSystem: a true or false value that states whether the component is required for a stable system. size: The size in MB. group: The group which the component belongs to. 3. Description element The Description element contains the description of the component. 4.DependantComponenets element The DependantComponenets element lists the components that depend on this component. 5. NeededFor element The NeededFor element lists the software that require this component to function properly. 6. Files element The Files element contains a list of the files to be deleted. 7. File element The File element contains the following attributes: path: the path to the file to be deleted. It is relative to the location where the image is mounted. Wildcard can be used here with the character “*" which must be placed before the extension of the file and at the end of the file name. method: either "delete" or "deleteLine" string: the String to be matched with the lines in the file. this means that every line that contains the string will be deleted. 8. Directories element The Directories element contains a list of the directories to be deleted. 9. Directory element The Directory element contains the following attributes: path: The path of the directory. Wildcard can be used here with the character "*" which must be placed at the end of the directory name. 10. Registry element The Registry element contains a list of the keys and values to be removed. 11. Keys element The keys element contains a list of keys to be deleted 12. Key element The key element contains the following attributes: path: The path to the key. . Wildcard can be used here with the character "*" which must be placed at the end of the key name. Note: The "*" is allowed in a regestry key name. Rarely you will find a registry key that contains "*". part: The registry part which the key is located. The parts are: components: Represents the registry hive "components" system: Represents the registry hive "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM" default: Represents the registry hive "default" software: Represents the registry hive "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE" 13. Values element The Values element contains a list of registry values to be deleted. 14. Value element The value element contains the following attributes: path: The path to the key which holds the value part: the registry part which the key is located value: the name of the value to b deleted 15. How to identify files, directories and registry keys and values for a certain component. Note: It is recommended to use a Windows 7 x64 image because it will have the files for both the x86 and x64. To do so follow these steps: 15.1. Know the name of the component e.g. Sticky Notes. 15.2. Go to the folder Windows\winsxs\Manifests in Windows 7. 15.3. Search for the files that their name contains the name of the component. 15.4. Open these files (which have the extension .manifest) with a text editor (Notepad++ recommended) and inspect the content. You will find some file, directory and registry elements. 15.5. Map these to your XML. 15.6. Add the names of the manifests files you found to the XML also. (Wildcards are recommended) 15.7. Go to the folder Windows\winsxs and find the directories which have the component name. Add thier names to your XML.(Wildcards are recommended) 15.8. Open Windows\winsxs\pending.xml with a text editor and look if there are lines that contain the component name and add them to your XML. 15.9. Load the hive "components" located in Windows\System32\config to your registry and go to the key "DerivedData\Components" and search for keys that contain the component name and add them to your XML. 15.10. Place the XML in the components folder with a name that does not have white spaces and only small letters. 15.11. Test the XML. 16. Not implemented parts The following elements are still not handled by 7Customizer: DependantComponenets ,NeededFor So do not bother yourself with them and wait for a release that supports them. 17. Features to add The ability to insert registry keys and values to the image registry, which means custom registry tweaks. The ability to delete part of a registry value (Not the whole value). (thanks Schemek for the suggestion). 18. Tips 1. The HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT is a hive that points to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes. 2. Always remember that XML elements and attributes are case sensitive. 3. Check your XML for errors using the XML tools in Notepad++. If you have any question about components XML, please ask them here. For questions about 7Customizer post it in the main thread of 7Customizer. Regards