Antonino

TX wuliyen, I will, which will act on a new os install. How about having the same on an already installed os? Will I have to start over in order to enjoy the benefits? in other words, if I want to re-apply a wim file from some previous install or other and place my unattend.xml in the unattend slot, will wintsetup take it into account in the apply process or not? if not, I guess I would have to do it all over again from the iso. this is my very doubt and consequent question.

Thanks JFX for the bitlocker script, I have inserted it too, and I believe it is used at the outset, when u first install the iso. how do I eradicate bitlocker from an already installed os? would the same "script" apply? if it would, how and where?

would anybody pls tell me how come I already had offreg.dll in all sorts of folders (system32, syswow64, winsxs, et al.) without needing the reuploading? thanx in advance

so far so good; well, everything is going spick&span! Attaboy, JFX!

Eureka!!! my stupidity has so far prevented me from realizing that \windows\logs is to be left alone, or even junctioned elsewhere (for instance, in ram (z:\ in my case)); it should never be zerobyted, or else a lot of software that wants to write to it cannot do so and hangs. I hope that is the only caveat for my reducing scripts, unless other software wants other folders to be left alone in the windows directory. other directories, the program files ones and the users one, do not impact that much on the system, at least as far as my software and hardware architecture is concerned. I have found this out by replacing the content of each directory in the full system with that of each directory of the minwinned version, folder by folder. Of course, there will surely be other folders in windows that should be left alone, but I have not yet found out which ones. Well, the other one is \windows\temp, which can be junctioned in ram as well.

thanx dimo, btw, did u check the text file I posted yesterday afternoon to see if it had been removed any earlier? that was what was left of defender on my side yesterday afternoon. your file I launched it a few hours ago.

look, this is what I got for a second dos box after pressing 1 - anything unexpected? what do u reckon?

no doubt about that, I only did not know what to do on the first version, which left me with a dos-box-like scenario of alternatives for me to choose from among, and I did not know which would do what. on my second instance, it was a bat which I executed, but did not know what it did or did not in terms of stopping windows defender, which I claim I already have done by my brute force deletion philosophy, i.e. by deleting all occurrences of windows defender both on the disk and in the registry. I even posted a txt listing the only entries left in the registry for u all to check. in spite of my incompetence, I am still talking of windows defender, not of racism whatsoever, which I do not even consider in the least. I am a tech fan, not a politics fan. all that to simply mean my english is infinitely better than my russian, so I was afraid of making the wrong choice out of misunderstanding the options.

well, I have now come across the bat version from github and I launched it, some russian wording came up a dos window and I can't make out what it means. but it did launch and execute. I just hope it has done the job if it was needed.

unfortunately, there is no english translation, so I cannot test it.

that is why one has to have done it beforehand.

excuse me, everybody, if I might appear to be like a stick in the mud, but would anyone explain to me what is wrong with having only the following list of registry occurrences of defend (which means windefend, windows defender, windowsdefender, etc.) and no file or folder occurrence on disk? below is a text file listing all I have found in my registry concerning windows defender. no coming back, no rebutting in in normal everyday operations. never have I had to disable anything, never mind control it, at least this is what I see. am I missing anything? Advanced Registry Search.txt

it has never turned back up again in my case. of course, I have blocked updates and zerobyted "softwaredistribution"'s as well. Am I losing sight of anything? if I am, pls do tell me. of course, if your "good" way in the post above entails that, in addition to losing windefender. with my bad ways I have also lost other useful services, pls do tell me which ones, so that everybody, including me, knows whether to consider such losses or not in relation to their own needs.

yes there is, and it is what alacrán and jfx would probably call "brute force", a deletion of both files from the disk and keys from the registry. just delete all occurrences.

so does that mean we will have no choice between wimlib and wimgapi? can we at least use the latter if that is the case?

jfyi, reboot.pro is back down again; woops, now it is back up again

My dear Jfx, I have just checked with reboot.pro, and ... after so many problems with the website software update, they seem to wanna "start the ball rolling back again". the only thing of it is they want some contribution on our part, which can amount to just €10 per head, if there are as many of us as are needed to cover the expense. the greater our number, the lesser our contribution. since we have worked on wimbooting for years, we would like to still have your sense for synthesis and poignancy which has stood us in good stead for so long. As I and a few others are of the opinion that minwinning is not just a curiosity, but it can also be used for ordinary activity, it would be wonderful to join our knowledge and experience for keeping vhd's so small and still self-sufficient. To do so, I suggest that we should keep a neat modular linux-like database listing which services and dlls are needed for which various apps to still work in our minwinned vhd's. Considering my windows-reducing efforts so far, I started a decade ago with a vision from a discovery of file and folder junctions, trying to limit vhd content to just the files and folders needed to reach the desktop interface. all other files and folders I moved outside the vhd, junctioned it all back in and went on like this for years, until I discovered reboot.pro and met Wimb the Flying Dutchman. He briefed me into stopping junctioning files and folders out and back in again, as he had already envisaged a procedure called wimbooting, whereby the wim pointed to a vhd full of pointers that would guarantee the full funcioning of the system, pretty much the same as I was doing with junction, only a lot cleaner and more sensible. Then the rest has seen us all engaged in trying to reduce vhd more and more until u have come up with your knowledgeable brute-force-assisted minwin that we use today. As I was saying earlier, I have never relinquished using minwinned vhd's ordinarily, customizing my system to my advantage and liking before reducing it. the reduction has not always been so spick&span, so to speak, and I had to see what was to be retained in order for my favorite software to keep working. I have also reused my junctions on those components that not every vhd user shares with me (net framework all installed and junctioned out and back into c:\, and the same goes for my nvidia driver which can stay out of the vhd with its 1.7gigs of stuff - no reason to keep it on c:\). If we just could detect, single out and record what we have found out of services and dlls as to the functions typical of each of them, we could seriously think of using reduced vhd's to full capacity. Don't you think?

great jfx, what u suggest is what I have done so far; what I was advocating is actually changing the default x: drive letter - is it hardcoded in the exe file or can I go to a txt or ini file and change it in there?

sorry about changing the subject - would anyone tell me how to change the default x: vhd drive into any other one when creating it in winntsetup? me, I would be better off having i: as the default vhd drive instead.

u referring to the whole folder and subfolders and files I presume. me I have tried !ing all those entries wherever I found I had them \ed, but there is still something that prevents winntsetup from loading system 0x3 and software 0x3. what else coud it be? oh btw, there is another one that cannot derive from users\default\ntuser.dat, so I guess I will have to revise the list and ! the \users\default entry as well. btw, no issues instead if I delete some files in the config after it has loaded the registry, on an ex-post-facto basis.

it sometimes does the same to me, I wonder what files or directories should not be deleted to avoid this from happening

Sorry, I do not know how to delete my new account, as I recovered my old password and username and was able to sign back in, I do not need a new name.

Hi jfx, this is still Antonino, I am afraid I had to sign back up for my browser's apparently having lost my pw to enter here. I would like to know if winntsetup can take reg add and reg delete batch files anywhere in minwin. If anyone else has an answer to that, pls do not hesitate, as I am trying a couple of reg files and see if I can integrate them into the minwinning stage. Or else, I will keep doing it on an ex-post-facto basis. Thanx in advance

thank u ever so much jfx, the interface and service tests were successful, but the reg file would not want to merge. the access point was detected, but when I entered the pw and pressed next it left me with an error message of the kind. the exception unknown software exception (0xc0000002) in the application at location 0x00007FFF69AE051C.

well, folks, I can see that many people's needs expressed here so far suggest that a databank be kept which consists of all files and folders and drivers and stuff on a per-app or per-feature linux-like module basis to help each other with the features we do want to keep. otherwise we have to go by trial and error, which is not the best idea, as jfx suggests. I see that I am not the only one here with these whimsical needs, and I have been quibbling as to what the starting point might be. reboot.pro keeps an old but still valuable record of all applets that one does not want to do without, and this winntsetup here can still be a wonderful outpost for picky sticklers like us. even winntsetup was started with certain criteria as to what to leave intact and what to take out, which is a good start but then each one of us wants some further tailoring to one's needs. pls let me know what u think of the idea.