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7Customizer components XML


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Hi,

I've created and tested a few xml files. They work fine with 7Customizer 0.5.0a. One of them is a replacement for stickynotes.xml. It removes a few more manifest files.

I'll be making more now that 7Customizer works correctly. They were created using the tool linked in the post above.

Enjoy!

components.zip

Edited by justibus
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  • 4 weeks later...

Here are a few more xmls. Some of them supersede the ones I have attached in the post above. Just delete them.

These xmls have undergone basic testing. This means, Windows installed correctly in a vm and everything worked fine at first glance.

Please report anything out of the ordinary, preferably with a pointer to the culprit xml file.

I have also attached xmls for all keyboard layouts (except for US because it's the default fallback layout). They are removed fine but there is a peculiar sideeffect. In the selection window where you can choose a new layout, a lot of input languages are also missing. I have not yet figured out why that is. Some help is appreciated!

Be aware, that removing all those layouts will take a huge amount of time. The problem is that 7Customizer checks each file and registry entry for deletion and that seems to be awefully slow right now. The only way around that is to crtl-c out of it and force an unmount with dism (or I use the windows 7 toolkit).

Edit: I found another way which does not break dismounting. In the 7Customizer_0.5.0a\work folder just rename "RemoveComponenetsHelper2.exe" to something else (I appended .bak). That way the command is not found and therefor not executed but the batch script continues anyway.

Cheers!

Edit: I've attached a few more components that seem to work fine.

components.zip

keyboards.zip

components_061111.zip

Edited by justibus
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Great work on the component xml's. I for one definitely want to see some more xml's for additional components.

I want to spark a little food for thought.

During my first my first removal run using the XML's from this thread, I couldn't help but to notice how long it takes to parse and process each individual XML. It seems as if 7Custimizer is using the AIK tools for each XML individually and of course opening and closing the WIM image with each XML. Its not a huge thing because everything is working in the end.

Getting to the point

I was thinking of combining the Language Keyboard Layout XML's into a single XML to speed up processing. If you are removing all but the US keyboard layouts and all of the components from this thread; The results should show at least a 50% improvement on building time. I see it working like this:

It took me about 2 hours to complete my 7custimization session from start to finish. Most of that time in which was used to for removing components. Again no big deal, but I took some time to stare at the console screen as the removal took place. If i were to combine the language layouts into a single XML i ~could~ save myself 157 dialogs with the WIM image. With the other components only taking up 29 XML's they make a small impact to the processing time.

I will for certain post my combined keyboard xml when its finished. Other then that I'd like to hear what you all think. Perhaps we could request that 7custimizer can combine these xml's in memory before the actual compilation in which will have all of the work done in a single session with the wim.

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Great work on the component xml's. I for one definitely want to see some more xml's for additional components.

Thanks! I'm working on more but I slowly run out of easy to remove components. It takes a lot more testing now.

During my first my first removal run using the XML's from this thread, I couldn't help but to notice how long it takes to parse and process each individual XML. It seems as if 7Custimizer is using the AIK tools for each XML individually and of course opening and closing the WIM image with each XML. Its not a huge thing because everything is working in the end.

Wait... for each component you select for removal, 7Customizer mounts the image, removes the component and saves and dismounts the image? Are you sure about that? If that is the case, that is very strange behaviour. On my setup, 7Customizer mounts the image in the beginning and saves and dismounts it at the end, so only once.

What version are you using? If you use a version older than 0.5.0c, try that one. It's much faster because it does not check for correct removal of the components (which takes a long time for each component, especially for keyboard layouts).

I was thinking of combining the Language Keyboard Layout XML's into a single XML to speed up processing. If you are removing all but the US keyboard layouts and all of the components from this thread; The results should show at least a 50% improvement on building time. I see it working like this:

[...]

Perhaps we could request that 7custimizer can combine these xml's in memory before the actual compilation

I think combining several xmls into one and shipping them is not a good idea, especially for the keyboard layouts. People need to be able to select which one(s) they need to keep an which ones they want removed. I for one absolutely need the us international layout.

But your second suggestion of 7Customizer combining the selected xmls before actually executing the removal could have some merit. Though I don't know how much faster it would go. I suspect the time winnings are negligible when the component delete verification is turned off (which is default in version 0.5.0c). This needs a test.

Another question:

Did you by chance notice random freezes while using the lited Windows? During testing I encounter time and again sudden freezes. I can move the mouse cursor and mouse over animations in the open window also still work, but I can't select anything. After waiting a few minutes, everyting works fine again. I suspect, it's virtualbox not getting along very well with my system, but I want to be sure.

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Justibus thanks for the feedback, I played with a few xml's and discovered that you were right about way 7custimizer is working so thank you for the feedback. I'm going to run a lited windows 7 on bare metal soon I'm just putting it off for a bit due to the build speed lol. I'll aim to post something by this evening or tomorrow. I'll attempt to report on memory usage, event logs, performance and stability of the lited system.

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  • 3 months later...

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.

  1. 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>

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hello justibus,

I hope you can help or point me to some place or someone that can. I have being trying to use 7Customer.0.5.0c to remove windows 7 components but cannot get it to work. I am not sure why it is not working or what I am during wrong. Do I need to do anything after I select the components in the "7Customizer Tweaks Section"? Do I need to edit the xml file the 7Customizer build and if so what file.

If u do not mind could you give me a step-by-step process to do to gt it to work or tell me where it is documented which show what to do. I really like to tool but I need to remove or turn on features. for example I check the box to remove "Games", "Pictures", "Documents", "Music" but they still show in the Start Menu. How and what do I need to do to get the components removal to work. I really would apprecaite your help to resolve this problem.

Thanks

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Why not just try the updated stand alone tool?

http://sourceforge.net/projects/w7cr/

If you need a step by step do it this way.

1. Use 7-zip to extract your wim to a working NTFS partition.

2. run the command tool for W7CR

3. remove the components with the current available XML files

4. Use Windows 7 Toolkit to then capture the directory you used W7CR on as a new wim and compress it and finish up all your customizations with that.

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Hello justibus,

I hope you can help or point me to some place or someone that can. I have being trying to use 7Customer.0.5.0c to remove windows 7 components but cannot get it to work. I am not sure why it is not working or what I am during wrong. Do I need to do anything after I select the components in the "7Customizer Tweaks Section"? Do I need to edit the xml file the 7Customizer build and if so what file.

If u do not mind could you give me a step-by-step process to do to gt it to work or tell me where it is documented which show what to do. I really like to tool but I need to remove or turn on features. for example I check the box to remove "Games", "Pictures", "Documents", "Music" but they still show in the Start Menu. How and what do I need to do to get the components removal to work. I really would apprecaite your help to resolve this problem.

Thanks

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.

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Hi,

I like to know how do I get the tweaks options: Music, Pictures, Documents, TV, etc., that I check to "Don't display..." Do I need to do anything special to make this work because it is not working now when I check them to "NOT DISPLAY". Please HELP and response ASAP....

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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.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Nice thread, I was looking through the XMLs earlier when it didn't work and was manually doing it myself (OMG that's mind numbling boring and tedious) and I noticed that they weren't listed alpphabetically, could you make them alphabetical?

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Nice thread, I was looking through the XMLs earlier when it didn't work and was manually doing it myself (OMG that's mind numbling boring and tedious) and I noticed that they weren't listed alpphabetically, could you make them alphabetical?

The xml files have the type of component before the name of the components to be removed in the default xml filenames. For example, accessories_notepad.xml or drivers_modems.xml. This should automatically be sorted alphabetically. Also, what doesn't work? What were you doing manually?

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  • 2 months later...

Nice thread, I was looking through the XMLs earlier when it didn't work and was manually doing it myself (OMG that's mind numbling boring and tedious) and I noticed that they weren't listed alpphabetically, could you make them alphabetical?

The xml files have the type of component before the name of the components to be removed in the default xml filenames. For example, accessories_notepad.xml or drivers_modems.xml. This should automatically be sorted alphabetically. Also, what doesn't work? What were you doing manually?

I don't remember what I was doing back then, but I'm trying it again, adn this time it's saying that libexpat-1_.dll can't be found, and it's right next to create.exe, and I've also copied it to the System32 folder and treid registering it, and it doesn't work, and I've also got Strawberry PErl installed (at C:\Perl instead of the default location) becasue I was trying to hack my iPhone with a perl script I found on the web lol. anyway, I tried copying C:\Perl to C:\strawberry\Perl, because that's where it expected it, and it's still not working.

~Edit~

I AM using the x64 version of Strawberry Perl though, could that be the problem?

~Edit2~

I'm having all kinds of permissions issues with Windows, I'll probably have to reinstall.

Edited by marcusj0015
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