WinReducer 7.0 - FINAL Builds

By the way Parapher, did you try the CopyProfile in sysprep? This should copy from Administrator Account to Default Account. 
If I clean the registry in Audit Mode (Ctrl+shift+F3) Administrator account, then install the new Windows, make a new Account the registry still got errors. This happens because the registry will be generated in the Windows Installation for the Default Account, but I think with the CopyProfile in sysprep it should inherit the registry from the Administrator Account. This somehow doesn't work for me or did I something wrong?

Basically you install your Windows normally, in the Account creation go to Audit Mode/Administrator account, setup your Windows, clean registry and then sysprep with an answer file. You do this in the cmd:

C:\Windows\System32\sysprep\sysprep /oobe /generalize /shutdown /unattend:C:\Windows\System32\sysprep\default.xml

This command will start sysprep with the answer file, in my case it's the default.xml which I have created.

In the answer file there is the command true.






Could you test this? You can copy the code, save it in notepad as default.xml and copy it to your sysprep folder.
Thanks!

P.S It also seems in the sysprep log there is nothing written about a successful CopyProfile...

OK, Torrentus, I'll try to test this when I have some time. I won't have much time this week but I'm sure I can do some stuff.

Last night I made several lite builds with the latest WinReducer but once I start installing in VM to do a sysprep/capture, I can't get Windows to install completely. I get the expanding files, reboot, and then somewhere down the line the VM aborts before it can complete installing. I did not have this problem with the WR test build, but I did try different configurations so I was trying to get back to a similar wccf file but still couldn't get it to work. Now I'm trying with the WR test build to see if that image will work. If so, maybe something has changed in the latest WR build that won't allow me to do the reg hive swap anymore or something. It's hard to pinpoint yet but if I get success with the test build and failure with the latest WR but with the same wccf file I'll post the results here (it looks like this is the case right now).

@Winterstorm
All are talking here about slimming down Win7, but the "Basics" are not Running at all! Driver Integration does not tun at all. I have extracted the Drivers with Drivermax and put the files in one separate folder. Even the OEM -Section does not run . My proggies, which I have made an SFX-Addon from, are not integrated.
Regards and hoping of more Advances of winreducer!

Hey,

@parapher : Latest test build and public are identical !

pedilover wrote:

@Winterstorm
All are Talking here about Stimmung down Win7, but the "Basics" are Not Running at all! Driver Integration dös Not tun at all. I have extractee the Drivers with Drivermax and Pit the files in One folder. Eben the OEM -Section dies Not run . My proggies, which I have made an SFX-Addon from, are not integrated.
Regards and hoping of more Advances of winreducer!

Could you please open Bugs report thread in the bugs section. Thank you !   

OK, thanks Winter   I thought you had changed some settings for the sysprep thing, but I must have misunderstood. I just did a build that did work (although with test build but if they are the same...) so it must have been one of the features I selected that was causing the fail. Thanks for the info, though

Hi Winterstorm,
where can I find the Bug Sektion ?
Regards

Hello,

Here : https://forum.winreducer.net/f14-bugs

And read the "HOW TO CORRECTLY REPORT A BUG" thread, to repect the rules, thank you !  

Any idea about when you're going to add Windows updates?

Great utility, by the way.

hey winterstorm,

i tried version .4.1 and the winsxs cleanup were executed after the compression

-compression
- expert net freamework
-winsxs cleanup
- finalizinig

roguebert wrote:

Any idea about when you're going to add Windows updates?
Great utility, by the way.

Hello,
If you mean download Windows Updates, this should be never added (too much work to do) and many other software does this wonderfully. But, in WinReducer 7.0, you could integrate all of them using the "System - Updates" component by pointing to your updates folder in which you stored all of them.
Thanks.

KrX wrote:

hey winterstorm,
i tried version .4.1 and the winsxs cleanup were executed after the compression
-compression
- expert net freamework
-winsxs cleanup
- finalizinig

Hey KrX,
Yes, it seems to do not work as I thought, my mistake, I will solved this in the next build (v2.99.5.0)

EDIT : DONE !

too bad you dont consider use auto updaes downloader (such as windows 8.1 winreducer does).

I use WUD to download wind 7 updates but i will preffer winreducer to do that

Yes, I know but I don't have enough time to do everything I would like to do (including add windows updates downloader) so I need to do some important choices ... Maybe one day, you knows ...   

Winterstorm, I've tested the latest build, everything is fine except the generated Autounattended.xml by Winreducer. SkipAutoactivation and Set Network Location does not work, you need to set it up manually. 
In the previous Autounattended.xml that I have posted HERE and which was created by RT7-Lite, the SkipAutoactivation and Set Network Location does however work. 

So good work on the sysprep and winsxs fix  . There are no other problems I have encountered yet.

Also for future plans, I have some suggestions for you.

1. I would add an Expert section at the bottom of the Remove Page in Winreducer. You could add the components from my lists I have posted already HERE, HERE and HERE . Another big list will soon come, need to test it a bit more  . You could then also put all Expert Options ( WinSXS & Framework Expert Cleanup etc. ) in the Expert section to have it all clean and sorted out.  

2. It would be also great if you could implement the WinSXS Repair trick into Winreducer. This would save time and you would also make other users happy that are integrating their Windows Updates offline  . You can find it HERE and my suggestion for implementation HERE

That's it for now, thank you for your hard work and I also think you should take a break

Cheers!

Yes, if you need it, take a break, winter   We are grateful for your efforts and to get a good tool we understand it takes time. As for update downloader, I'd say don't worry about it, WHD is the best there is so far and the only thing (I think) that could be considered is to allow WR to work with its folder structure so it would be easier for noobies. But for now I would not want to put that on you. Take a break on us, we'll take care of the tab

@Torrtorus

im at the moment looking through the batches from you and billibully and me for instal.wim and removed all files that winreducer allready removes. As soon as im done with that (i found an error) i will post them (removed entries that are two or three times in this batches)

and after that i will get a look at your earlier posts with files and check them, maybe i will get that done today.

ok here are the batches for install.wim

http://www44.zippyshare.com/v/15721304/file.html
http://www44.zippyshare.com/v/21550498/file.html
http://www44.zippyshare.com/v/15607303/file.html
http://www44.zippyshare.com/v/29960294/file.html
http://www44.zippyshare.com/v/30922023/file.html

it reduced 44mb from my iso file (20mb from install.wim)

all this files still existed in winreducer .4.0

if someone could test it (billibully or torrtorus maybe) because you reduced nearly the same as me.

if someone else wants to use it be carefull because it removes ALL files for each component you can remove in winreducer, e.g if you want to keep firewall, IE etc this batches remove files of this components and they wount work anymore for you

@winterstorm

you need to choose which files are for which components, some of this batches are allready sorted but some arent

hey here are the files again

http://www74.zippyshare.com/v/54397888/file.html
http://www74.zippyshare.com/v/85121617/file.html
http://www74.zippyshare.com/v/50356809/file.html
http://www74.zippyshare.com/v/47148115/file.html
http://www74.zippyshare.com/v/79031238/file.html

i found an error and corrected it

EDIT: i forgot to mention that you need to change some of the path that contain "de-DE" to you language code

Hey guys,

Torrentus and Parapher : Thank you for your comments, I really appreciate !   

KrX, I got your files. Thank you. I tried to compare your previous "left_files_folders_winreducer.cmd" and this new one and it seems that the new one is lighter ...   

I will try to release a new build with some bugs fix before the end of the week, but it's far from sure for the moment !

See you soon ...  

winterstorm2050 wrote:

KrX, I got your files. Thank you. I tried to compare your previous "left_files_folders_winreducer.cmd" and this new one and it seems that the new one is lighter ...  

yep like i said i went through all the batch files and removed the entries that were two or three times and i removed the entries of files that winreducer removes now, too.

i will update them from time to time and maybe someday winreducer will get them all

hey winter, could you add this 2 things maybe in the next version?

- "del /q /f Windows\inf\*.PNF" (maybe in unneeded files // saved 4mb @iso)
- delete part or all files at \Windows\Media (saved 4mb @iso)

Hi Winterstorm,
when you will publish the next build at the end of the week, will there be these bugs fixed, which I had reprted ?
This would be great, because only then I can use the proggie correctly. The integration of drivers and sfx-addons is a "must have" of all these proggies (7customizer, 7lite, wintoolkit,..)
Regards and looking forward to next weekend

Guys, I have great news   . I finally got Sysprep with Copyprofile functional. 

This tutorial will teach you how to clean, tweak, defrag your registry, configure and boost up your Windows before Installation.
You should do this as the final step when you finally made your perfect slimmed down Windows ISO. Don't be scared of the length, 
I wrote this tutorial totally bulletproof that even beginners can follow and finish it successfully, it's in fact really simple

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1. Create your Virtual Hard Drive as VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) and install your Windows in VirtualBox.

2. During Windows Installation when you setup your Computer Name press Ctrl+Shift+F3, this will boot your Windows into Audit Mode and you will be logged as Administrator.     
    Close the Sysprep Popup.

3. In VirtualBox, setup a folder for sharing and install VBoxGuestAdditions. Restart your Virtual Windows as prompted.
    Close the Sysprep Popup.

4. Download the latest CCleaner portable version! http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download/portable/downloadfile
    Download the latest Wise Registry Cleaner portable version! http://www.wisecleaner.com/soft/WRCFree.zip
    Download the Glary Utilities 2.56.0.8322 portable version! http://download.glarysoft.com/guportable.zip
    Extract all and put it into your share folder.

5. Copy all three registry cleaners to your desktop and start cleaning with CCleaner, then Glary Utilities and Wise Registry Cleaner 
    (!!! Important Scan and clean the registry like 3 times with each program until no errors occur !!!)
    Also exclude and uncheck in Glary Utilities after Scan for Issues in Show Details following registry entry, it could cause problems with Windows Activation: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ADODB.Stream.6.0\CLSID 

    Here are my personal results:
   
    CCleaner - First Scan 1412 errors, Second Scan 328 errors, Third Scan 69 errors, Fourth Scan 0 errors
    Glary Utilities - First Scan 2247 errors, Second Scan 1 error, Third Scan 0 errors
    Wise Registry Cleaner - First Scan 37 errors, Second Scan 2 errors, Third Scan 0 errors

    After successfully cleaning, go to Wise Registry's System Tuneup Tab and click Optimize to boost Windows performance. 
    Reboot your Windows.

6. Close the Sysprep Popup, configure and setup your Windows how you want it to be and uninstall VirtualBox Guest Additions. When prompted restart your virtual Windows.

7. Close the Sysprep Popup and delete the leftover folder: C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Oracle VM VirtualBox Guest Additions 
    Now start again CCleaner and cleaning again, also clean all Windows temp files ( Check all Boxes ), then Glary Utilties. After Glary Utilities delete both CCleaner and Glary Utilities folder
    from your desktop and empty your trash bin. Now start Wise Registry Cleaner, clean again your registry, click on Registry Defrag and Analyse, when it's finished on Defragment 
    to further optimize your entire registry. Click on Yes to execute the task and reboot your Windows. 
    This whole procedure is necessary because through Windows restart and deleting the programs, new registry errors will come up again. 
   
   Here are my personal restults:

   CCleaner - First Scan 158 errors, Second Scan 0 errors
   Glary Utilities - First Scan 0 errors
   Wise Registry Cleaner - First Scan 2 errors, Second Scan 0 errors.

   Now also delete the Wise Registry Cleaner folder from your desktop and delete the folder: C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Roaming\Wise Registry Cleaner. 
   Empty your trash bin.

8. In your Virtual Windows click on the Windows Start Button and type regedit to go to your Registry Editor.
    Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE and delete the GlarySoft folder. ( This is a registry leftover from Glary Utilities )
    Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\ and delete GlarySoft and Oracle ( This is a registry leftover from Glary Utilities and VBoxGuestAdditions )
    Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Tracing\ and delete WiseRegCleaner_RASAPI32 and WiseRegCleaner_RASMANCS ( These are registry leftovers from Wise Registry Cleaner )   
    Close the Registry Editor.    

9. Go to Windows\System32\sysprep and start sysprep. 
    The sysprep will popup, configure System Cleanup Action to Enter System Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE), check Generalize and Shutdown Options to Shutdown. 
    Click OK, sysprep will configure your system and shutdown. 

10. On your Host Windows go to Computer Management and click on Disk Managment. Go to Action -> Attach VHD and select your existing VHD from Virtualbox and click OK.
     This will mount your Virtual Windows from VirtualBox. In the root delete the pagefile.sys. 

11. This OPTIONAL step is for Advanced Users who want their free space back, you can skip this if you don't care about a bigger Windows ISO. 
     ( This will get your original or even smaller install.wim size, otherwise your ISO will be about 35-40 MB bigger ).

Delete in your mounted VHD Windows:




12. On your Host Windows click on the Windows Start Button and type regedit to go to your Registry Editor.
     You need to fix the language bar that will appear on top default that was reseted by sysprep.
     Select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and then click on File -> Load Hive and select from your VHD Users\Administrator\NTUSER.DAT to load.
     Name it VHD_ADMINISTRATOR, open it and go to Software\Microsoft\CTF\LangBar\ click on ShowStatus and set a Value ( 1 = taskbar , 3 = hidden )
     Then select VHD_ADMINISTRATOR and click on File -> Unload Hive and click on YES and close the Registry Editor.

13. Now you need to capture your VHD , start WinToolkit and go to Tools -> Imaging -> Capture Image
     In the Block "Select a WIM File" click on New WIM and Save, select your output folder and name the file install.wim
     In the Block "Folder to Capture" select your VHD where your virtual Windows is stored. 
     In the Block "Info" you can name your Windows Version if it's blank, most of the time its automatically filled.
     In the Block "Compression" select Maximum
     Click on Start

14. Now extract all content from your slimmed ISO to a new folder and replace the new install.wim with the old one. 
      Here comes to IMPORTANT PART ( this is for Windows 7 64bit only ), if you already have an Autounattend.xml in your ISO root you need to copy these 2 components into your xml:



  If you don't have an Autounattend.xml you need to create one in Notepad and paste this code, save it as Autounattend.xml and copy this file into your root from your extracted ISO folder:



15. Now switch to WinToolkit go to the Basic Tab and click on ISO Maker.
     In the block "Folder to capture" select your folder where you extracted your Windows ISO and pasted your new Autounattend.xml
     In the block "Label" name your Windows
     In the block "ISO Output" select where you want to save your new ISO and name it.
     In the block "Options" uncheck Rebuild Image"
     Click on Start

16. On your Host Windows go to Disk Managment, select your VHD, right click and Detach VHD. Click on OK. Install your Windows as usual and enjoy!

If you've followed exactly this tutorial you will get no registry errors after Windows installation, your registry will be already defragged and your Windows performance better!

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When you are using Winreducer without this method there will be still registry errors after Windows installation, let me explain how this is happening. You have booted into the Administrator account and cleaned
there multiple times the registry. When you sysprep your Windows, your system will be re-configured and generalized. The trick here is to use the Copyprofile option afterwards which is set in the Autounattended.xml. 
This will copy everything ( even the registry ) from your Administrator Account to your Default Account. Everytime you create a new Windows Account, you will inherit the same settings.

Winreducer partially cleans the registry while removing the components, but you will get registry errors after Windows installation because the Default Account will be generated by the HKEY_CURRENT_USER Hive
which is not cleaned. 

@Winterstorm , you should try this yourself and compare it. Make an ISO with Winreducer and remove everything. Install the Windows and check with CCleaner, Glary Utilities and Wise Registry Cleaner.  Now use the same slimmed down Windows ISO and follow this tutorial. Install the new cleaned Windows and run the 3 cleaners and you will see . Maybe you could somehow clean the whole registry to make  Winreducer even better.

Please leave some feedback, cheers!!

P.S Shout-out and credits to Parapher for introducing me Sysprep   

Hi I might be blind, but cant find the latest 2.99.4.1 version... I used 2.99.2 but that gives me an error during startup after installation of my lited image:

its missing these two (essential) files:

windeploy.exe
gdiplus.dll

can you protect them from removal Or add some sort of protected files function so I can add them myself

edit: nevermind I see this issue is fixed in the new version.


thnx

winterstorm2050 wrote:

Yes, I know but I don't have enough time to do everything I would like to do (including add windows updates downloader) so I need to do some important choices ... Maybe one day, you knows ...   

For Windows 7 Post-SP1, I recommend everyone to use the UpdatePack7 Live updates for Windows7 SP1 by Simplix. Includes IE11 proper integration and doesn't need a 3rd party tool for integration. Really works great, so why burden winterstorm with this?

I found out that I had some problem with Windows Activation, if someone else encounters one too it's due to Glary Utilties Registry Cleaner. If you clean your registry with Glary, scan for issues as usual. When it's done the program will show you how many problems it found. Click on the red Show Details button and exclude/uncheck following entry:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ADODB.Stream.6.0\CLSID

Then remove everything else as usual and you will be fine  . I have updated the tutorial with this information to be on the safe side.

Torrentus, nice job on the above

As for Glary, I have not used it and for good reason. From XP on that reg cleaner has been a problem for me. Then on Win7 I tried it again (some years back) and it messed up some more stuff so I vowed to not use it again. You may try Auslogics Registry Cleaner, it's free as well. At a certain point the reg cleaners really overlap in their activities, but it can't hurt to have a number of good ones. I'd say CCleaner, 'Windows 7 Manager' reg cleaner, Auslogics Registry Cleaner, Wise Registry Cleaner. The reg cleaner that comes with "Reg Organizer" is also quite powerful so you could try that (it's safe unlike Glary). I used to like WinASO's reg cleaner until I found it hides the entries it can't fix on first try, so it's more of a subjective 'fix'

I never had any problems with Glary and I'm using it for like 8 years, this cleaner also showed more results than any other...
I am using these 3 registry cleaner programs ( CCleaner, Glary Utilities and Wise Registry Cleaner ) for many years with the best results, without any problems whatsoever. From my personal experience these 3 are among the best. You can of course use any registry cleaner programs as you wish, it is just a tutorial to show you how it is done. And yea you are right, Auslogics Registry Cleaner is also very good, you can add it to the list =)

I will suggest winterstorm2050 to keep the HD audio driver in preset if VM needs to work, not only just the Intel Network driver and the LSI disk driver.

Oh, by the way the Windows accounts pictures were not removed in the current build.
Located in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows

Also the Ringtone folder there..

Can one post an alternative link for 2.99.4.1? I can't seem to download it from the OP. Thanks

http://www.winreducer.net/uploads/1/4/0/2/14027261/winreducer70.zip