justibus

Huh! I'm surprised people still use this. As to your error, I assume you are using the latest version on sf.net. Unfortunately, I don't know what caused this error. It seems to be a problem with Perl. What you can try is to delete the whole "par-53495732" folder, reboot the computer and try to run it again. By the way, if you run it without mounting or extracting a windows installation image into mount, you will get the following error: It seems, the Windows installation wim file is not mounted in mount!

I checked again more thoroughly, and you're right. Thanks for pointing it out. I'm uploading a fixed version.

hmm, I missed that warning before releasing it. It's fixed, but since it's a purely cosmetic issue, it will have to wait until the next release. But, it's nothing to worry about. I just tested it and it works all right. Your image size does not shrink if you do not export the modified image from the ortiginal wim file to a new one. I use imagex for that (imagex /export), but there are other tools out there (windows 7 toolkit springs to mind). Have you tested the installation in a virtual machine? Did it remove the components you selected? Thanks for reporting the bug!

I just wanted to let you know that I released a new version of remove (v0.9; see first post). It has mainly a few bug fixes, some new xmls, dependency checking is implemented and seems to be working (skip with -n) and there a few new command line options (-n and -b for benchmarking). I know it's been a while and in the meantime Windows 8 is out, but I'm still working on it, though not so frequently any more. Let me know how it works for you. @smilodon: If you're still around, can you test this release and report back?

With Shell32, you mean the shell32.dll? As long as you can find manifest files in Windows\winsxs\Manifests, you can create an xml with create.exe. Otherwise you have to construct an xml manually. But why it creates xmls only every other time, I can't say why this happens without a bit more info. When using the same keyword, does it work one time and not the next? Could you attach a log file of a successful run and an unsuccessful run (if there is one)? I can only do guesswork if you don't give me a little more information. Hmm, I haven't thought about Windows 8. I'll fix it in the next version. Unfortunately, I can't say when I'll be able to release it.

Ok, your setup looks good. What command line do you use?

Not every keyword works. What xml creator does is search through all manifest files in Windows\winsxs\Manifests and select the ones that have your keyword in the first <assemblyIdentity> tag (in the name attribute). Have you extracted a WIM file to some folder and pointed settings.ini to it? Otherwise it will give a warning. You need to run create.exe from an elevated command promt because it needs to load the registry hives from the extracted WIM file into the registry. That only works with administrative rights. If you give me the command line you use, the version of create (create.exe -v) and paste the contents of your settings.ini into a code tag here, I can look into what's not working.

What exaclty do you mean with alphabetical? The <Files>, <Directories>, ... elements?

I uploaded a new version (0.8). This one only comes with one new xml file (UAC). But there are a lot of internal changes, some of them visible (like more progress bars! Yay!). There is also a gui in the works by Winterstorm2050. But you'll have to wait for that one a little.

I'm afraid I'm not familiar with that feature of 7Customizer. I've never used it. Sorry. I can only give you the general advice to use an original image. You should probably ask in the sticky thread about 7Customizer. This thread only deals with the xml format for the component removal feature of 7Customizer.

If you use 7Customizer, you have to make sure of a couple of things: - In the apply tab, check "Verify file deletion" - To remove components, use the Components Tab. The Tweaks tab doesn't actually remove components from the installation. Be aware, that this feature is very beta (I myself you rather say alpha in an advanced stage). As an alternative, you can use my command line utility Moonchilde pointed to in the previous post. But it only removes stutt. It doesn't do anything either. And it's also beta. So your results might vary.

There is a new version, 0.7. It has a few more xmls and comes with a new -d option for printing the description of all xml files to the console. You can redirect that to a file by simply appending "> file.txt" to the end of the command line (without the quotes). Cheers!

I uploaded a new version that adds a <Packages> element to the xml. For an explanation and a summary of all the other changes to the xml after v0.9.20, have a look here.

This is a small writeup of the changes I have made to the xml format blue has defined and why I made them for xml creator and the companion removal tool. I want to thank blue for creating this format. It allows us a lot of control over the removal process. But it has a few shortcomings I addressed with my modifications. Extended wildcard support File and directoy elements support wildcards as most Windows console programs do. That means you can put multiple wildcards in each path attribute. Registry keys and values also have almost propper wildcard support. You can put several wildcards in the path attribute of the <Key> and <Value> elements. The <Key> wildcards are resolved as in the <File> or <Directory> elements. The wildcards in <Value> elements are resolved according to the value attribute. For example, if you have a wildcard in the value and path attributes, the removal tool should find all the values in all keys after resolving the wildcards. This is to some extend possible with the "reg.exe query" method. [*]New element <Manifests>. Instead of putting the manifest files and directories and registry entries into their respective elements, they get their own element. This removes redundancies and makes it easier to make changes in the future how those elements are processed during removal without having to change the xml. We probably still don't understand the process of how these files and registry entries are used by Windows. [*]New element <Packages>. Some components are referenced in separate packages (located in Windows\servicing\Packages and in two places in the registry, HKLM\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\component based servicing and HKLM\COMPONENTS\CanonicalData). This entry is needed to remove those packages. It cannot be put into the other elements because some registry entries are totally different in different versions of Windows (those in CanonicalData). They need to be resolved during component removal. Below is an example xml that features all those changes (note: this is a semi- ficticious example). <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <_7Customizer> <Componenet group="System" name="Anytime Upgrade" requiredForStableSystem="false" size="1"> <Description>Upgrade Windows to a different edition.</Description> <DependantComponenets/> <NeededFor/> <Files> <File method="delete" path="ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Windows Anytime Upgrade.lnk"/> <File method="delete" path="Windows\Help\Windows\en-US\anyupgr.h1s"/> <File method="delete" path="Windows\System32\WindowsAnytimeUpgrade.exe"/> <File method="deleteLine" path="Windows\winsxs\Manifests\*microsoft-windows-h..epremium-deployment_*.manifest" string="Microsoft-Windows-Help-AnytimeUpgrade"/> <File method="deleteLine" path="Windows\winsxs\Manifests\*microsoft-windows-h..omebasic-deployment_*.manifest" string="Microsoft-Windows-Help-AnytimeUpgrade"/> <File method="deleteLine" path="Windows\winsxs\pending.xml" string="Microsoft-Windows-Anytime-Upgrade"/> <File method="deleteLine" path="Windows\winsxs\pending.xml" string="Microsoft-Windows-Help-AnytimeUpgrade"/> </Files> <Directories> <Directory path="Windows\System32\fiction\*win*"> </Directories> <Registry> <Keys> <Key part="software" path="Classes\CLSID\{BE122A0E-4503-11DA-8BDE-*}"/> </Keys> <Values> <Value part="software" path="Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MAIN\FeatureControl\FEATURE_*" value="WindowsAnytime*"/> </Values> </Registry> <Manifests> <Manifest id="*microsoft-windows-anytime-upgrade_*"/> <Manifest id="*microsoft-windows-anytime-upgradeui_*"/> </Manifests> <Packages> <Package id="Microsoft-Windows-Anytime-Upgrade-Results-Package*"/> <Package id="Microsoft-Windows-Anytime-Upgrade-Package*"/> </Packages> </Componenet> </_7Customizer>

Moonchilde is right. It's probably a misspelling, at least I see no reason for it being spelled that way, but since the format is originally from blue4603, I kept it.