Any way to remove apps with DISM?

[krose]

Bought a new Lenovo laptop and of course it came with the usual crapware installed, OS is Win7 HPx64. There is a recovery partition where I found an image named cdrivebackup.wim. It is bloated to nearly 6.9GB. I mounted it using dism and got a lengthy list of apps installed. I know you can remove packages but I cannot see a way to remove applications. Is there any way to do this so that I may reinstall a cleaned up image and preserve windows activation?

[ricktendo]

You can use the same method to add/remove apps as what they do when doing a reverse integration of a service pack

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/window-on-windows/?p=1249

You install it to a second partition, when you reach the part where you enter your name for a user account press shift+ctrl f3, uninstall the apps you dont want, in the sysprep dialog tick generalize and choose shutdown and hit OK, then you boot into your main OS and you use imagex to capture the OS you installed and removed stuff on the second HDD

A bit daunting but doable

If I were you I would get a retail copy of Windows 7, back up the oem certificate and serial from your current install and add it to your DVD to create in essence a OEM DVD

Edited January 19, 2011 by ricktendo64

[krose]

Thanks for the reply. I have a retail copy for my desktop. I used a keyfinder to get the OEM's key from the laptop. Where would I look for the OEM certificate and serial?

[ricktendo]

Usually %WinDir%\System32\oem\, that's the place you usually put it if you want it auto installed, you are looking for a *.XRM-MS file

If you google "create oem dvd" you will find some info, maybe even some tools that can grab the files like RipOEM.EXE and there are others

BTW ignore the pid.txt stuff, no longer works I think, just enter your oem serial during normal setup

Edited January 19, 2011 by ricktendo64

[krose]

My effort was successful! I put the key in my autounattend.xml file and the .xmr-ms file in both system32 and syswow64 oem folders. I don't know if it matters but I also edited the ei.cfg file from retail to oem and set VLK to 1 from 0. Did the install and it is already activated without all the crapware. Went from 60+ processes down to 33, LOL. Thanks so much for your help.

[ricktendo]

Glad to help

BTW I dont think you have to put it in syswow64\oem only system32\oem (unless thats the way it was on your original oem install) and editing ei.cfg, not so important

Edited January 19, 2011 by ricktendo64