You probably don't want to go down that rabbit hole. (trust me, I've done it, it is littered with footguns and sometimes incorrect documentation, and outdated advice. Lots of things are legacy, the docs are extensive but still only scratch the surface)
Search for unattended install, autounattend.xml, Windows System Image Manager, Windows Imaging Toolkit. Don't try to install WSIM from windows store, as that version doesn't work. (this alone can save half a day of debugging phantom problems). There are extensive docs on the topic, but they are sometimes incorrect, contain incorrect code, etc.
Seconding that unattended Windows installs, or even just customized Windows install media, are a giant pain in the ass. It's kind of fun to explore once but the amount of effort required to get to something that works doesn't feel worth it by the time you get there.
It can be a quite complex process.
It also tends to break easily if not done right. Most organizations that deploy large amounts of systems will create Windows images with tools like Microsoft SCCM for example.
This also works:
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/96683-create-media-autom...
Didn't know you could get the base images directly from Microsoft, safe third party tools to validate the installation would still concern me, unfortunately.
This is a great question. Since they removed Wang Imaging from the Windows installation, I'm often asked during parental system support duties what to do. Thank you for the suggestion of ImageGlass.
That's quite interesting, do you mind if I update the article and cite you as a source? (OP here.)
One a Linux LiveCD, I've sometimes connected to the internet and installed non-default packages; is something analogous possible with Windows 10 installer image, or is it only the tools that come on the disc?
Maybe this tool is a bit more comprehensive. After configuring a stripped down image, Windows can be installed in what is almost like a headless mode in literally 5 minutes with no user intervention:
Does anyone keep a list of vendors like ECOHERO that sell machines with unbloated "minimal" Windows?
I do not know the answer to your question but I would be highly skeptical and leery of a random name site with no website and no credentials doing custom installs. This is akin to the days of pirating Windows on Usenet with slip-streamed patches and other customization tweaks by some random person.
That said, I like the idea of a stripped down install. There are some powershell scripts to do this but they often break things. I believe a much better solution would be a well documented site that shows how to network install a windows ISO and strip out garbage during the installation in a reproducible manor. Such things do exist, I just do not spend much time in windows and do not have such links handy. Perhaps the Microsoft admins here could add to this?
Don't even have to clean install from a USB Key as of the Windows 10 Anniversary update from a few months ago. Microsoft now has a tool that downloads the image and installs it for you automatically.
They used to allow this (as recently as a few months ago). You could download any windows 7 iso and then would have to activate after install. They even provide a utility for making bootable flash drives from an iso (presumably for installing win7 without needing a disc). I have to imagine they stopped offering the images due to the high level of piracy.
With an image from microsoft and an easy to find, spy-ware free, super easy to use executable (I'll avoid mentioning names on here), it was way too easy to pirate windows.
Also, not sure why you still got bloatware with this method. Manufacturers typically offer all of the required drivers individually online. The drivers themselves are bloatware-free but maybe you got roped into installing a software pack for the machine or something?
I will investigate, but if you have a solid source for that it would save me the trouble. Thanks anyways. I’d really like for MS to stop doing this if they haven’t, I have a personal ban on running Windows outside of VMs until its over.
UPDATE:
Sigh... you are correct. Fresh install, Win10 Pro, same garbage.
> Even better was Windows (Live) Photo Gallery. Sadly it's dead since Feb 2017, you can't even install it anymore, as only a now broken WebInstaller exists.
This sounds like a challenge. You're on.
- Do some scratching around; discover sites hosting "wlsetup-all.exe"
$ curl -vv http://wl.dlservice.microsoft.com/download/C/1/B/C1BA42D6-6A50-4A4A-90E5-FA9347E9360C/en/wlsetup-all.exe
< HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
(...)
<div id="header"><h1>Server Error</h1></div>
(...)
<h2>404 - File or directory not found.</h2>
<h3>The resource you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.</h3>
Hmmm.
- Try and load wl.dlservice.microsoft.com/robots.txt in the Web Archive
- Get redirected to Microsoft homepage!!
- Lookup wl.dlservice.microsoft.com/* in Web Archive
There are other sites that have copies of the file, but a) this one is from the Web Archive and b) I've verified using a mixture of WA and still-live Microsoft redirects that this is the latest-ever release.
The windows install process is actually pretty hackable despite not being open source. It largely boils down to extracting an OS image archive into a partition and installing the boot loader in another, all of which can be directed manually via CLI from the install media (shift+F10 if you want to do it manually). So the modifications are more or less: Do you want to customize the partitions? Do you want to tweak/replace the bootloader? Do you want to extract a custom image? Do you want to modify the image after to customize the install?
I'm pretty sure that using this method will actually break the WinSxS component cache - it won't preserve hard links. It may appear to work, but you'll possibly have issues applying updates and service packs later on.
Search for unattended install, autounattend.xml, Windows System Image Manager, Windows Imaging Toolkit. Don't try to install WSIM from windows store, as that version doesn't work. (this alone can save half a day of debugging phantom problems). There are extensive docs on the topic, but they are sometimes incorrect, contain incorrect code, etc.
You can start from here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/customize...
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