I remember making a clean Windows XP image that had all updates and service packs slipstreamed with it, so once Windows was installed it was one and done as far as Windows itself. It was soooooo nice being able to do it that way.
This brought back nightmares! Sysprep, Unattended Installations, Images and Answer files. You did an EXCELLENT JOB. Things are getting even more complicated for no real reason I can see, I am glad you are on top of it!
I'm not even finished watching the video but I felt compelled to comment to say... THANK YOU for this. Please know that your week was not lost in vain. This is an invaluable wealth of information and I will be spending my upcoming 4 day weekend setting this up in my environment. Also want to say, I love and empathize with the strong language you use against Microsoft's practices, i.e. "keylogger", because that's exactly what it is. Privacy invasions shouldn't be allowed to get away with being called "inking and typing" which makes it sound like something innocent.
Dear sir, when you said "It's been 8 years please unify your control panel". All of the Windows User following you felt that. (Emotionally cries). Regards
I don't know about you but my pc is running 24/7... I never turn it off and although I agree it shouldn't restart your pc for any reason and leave it to the user to restart themselves, there will be users that like me, leave their computer on all the time even when not "using" it.
Well Done sir, using official tools can be a bit tricky. Seeing WDS again always gives me PTSD. I absolutely hate the ADK tools and generally end up shelling out money or just saying forget this and setting up a FOG environment. Cheers!
@@CraftComputing I don't not envy doing Desktop Images, building keeping our server images updated and meeting CIS is enough work for us. We dropped WDS for VMware Templates (OS , Either 2016 or 2019) with customization specs for each of the environment we deploy to. Good Video, and i like how you explained the script.
@@CraftComputing Well it shows man, for anyone wanting to use WDS this is the video to watch. I remember using WDS and System Essentials Suite with Essential Business Server in the late 2000s. It was a complete Nightmare. I swore never again, and I've kept that promise lol.
Imma be honest, you're significantly better than Linus Tech Tips. Not that hes bad, its just your content is more interesting and for a casual pc tinkerer, any tips i can get are appreciated.
You make it look so easy. I must confess that not being much of a computer savvy everything flew over my head, however your style of presentation kept me amazed and glued to the entire video. Your dexterity with the operating system is impressive indeed.
This process is a perfect example of how Microsoft rarely makes improvements to Windows that serve anyone other than themselves. This process has always been needlessly complex and seems to somehow get worse with every release.
@@eDoc2020 in our defence, technical previews of Windows 10 were better than the first release, which was better than the second, which was better than the third ans so on. It's 2021 already, LITERALLY, and just to rock some 1980's retro compatibility, which sometimes fails to work and let's be honest VMs can solve all issues there, they can't seem to bring *real* improvements on the table because they *WANT* to "stay in the past"
One of the many reasons I switched to Linux full time years ago. Fragmenting an OS into thousands of FOSS projects somehow works better than Microsoft's abusive alcoholic dad method.
Hi Jeff! Since I dont have a homelab and/or the ability do any sort of PXE Booting I used your videos to get 90% of the way there - the last 10% I ended up making a new ISO using oscdimg to create a new Disk Image file and then burned that to a flashdrive to use for my new PC. Thank you for the awesome video!
@@will11690 Should work fine. In fact, most old Windows games work fine on Win10; you can just copy-paste from Windows 7 and they should work. Pinball is no exception.
@@kylehaas864 And there are wrappers for those that don't work. There's a tool or hack out there 99.99% of the time that can make anything work on Windows lol
I really like that long pause after choosing the options to create users for organisations and still being given the option to log in with a microsoft account.
@TheDireWolf kmspico is abandonware and I wish people would stop recommending it. There are "hwid" projects made for windows 10 and you should check those out.
Yes, Windows 10 needs to be activated to personalize, BUT ONLY FOR doing it in the Settings app. Unactivated Windows doesn't effect personalization outside the Settings app. The problem isn't that. I say this from experience, you can even open and use theme files on unactivated Windows.
I enjoy your videos! I've been in IT awhile and it's nice to have the resources from experienced folks as yourself. One thing of note, when capturing the image I noticed my wim file creation went really fast. This was because I was targetting the C:\ which was the Fat32 partition and only 10MB in size. I discovered that the D: drive was the drive I wanted to capture. Just a note for some out there =)
Dude, massive thanks. I was so confused and just assumed it was either sysprep being weird or the Decrappify script messing up, never thought about something as obvious as selecting the wrong drive XD
Great guide. I already had WDS up and running, but didn't have a change to find out how to make a custom image. You made my day, by making this tutorial. I changed some settings in the script, but everything worked exactly as you explained, except slower, because I use a low powered Hyper-v server.
Also, if your device happens to be connected to the internet at that time, you have no option for offline, at least with Win10 Home, I was dumb and did that on my new laptop, I think I will do this and create some new builds for both of my laptops and PCs in the house.
You can press CTRL+SHIFT+F3 at the first screen of the setup (at 8:15) and it will skip the whole setup and enter audit mode which will save you from having to mess with the user accounts. Also you can create a capture image within WDS which automates a lot of the commands you had to enter during the image capture and it automates adding the captured image into WDS.
Hi Jeff, Perfect Contents Creator, Pro. , Cute and deserve to support you, man. Microsoft and other hardware/software companies are collecting private data about all their consumers, I've spent days disabling unwanted services that forced to be automatically started each time you log in to windows, the digital world too scary to live within without needed knowledge among all unexpected challenges. Now, by customized windows 10, by removing a bunch of crap using the idea you've clearly shown in the video, Now, I am totally able to see what's going on behind the scenes ;). Great job Jeff.
You could skip your setup all the way to 16:12 next time by the first time you enter OOBE, simply press Shift+F3. This will skip OOBE completely, and take you straight into the Administrator logon in Audit mode to customize the image. No need to make a temporary user account, fighting past the OOBE screens the first time, or having to delete the user account and profile. Go straight to the declutter step.
SIMPLY PRESSpress Ctrl+Shift+F3 . This will skip OOBE completely, and take you straight into the Administrator logon in Audit mode to customize the image. No need to make a temporary user account, fighting past the OOBE screens the first time, or having to delete the user account and profile.
I have query I want to sysprep a physical desktop including drivers as I can then apply that image to same type hardware and don't worry to install drivers
Yes! Thanks to Vulkan, Proton, Lutris, etc. I have had very little problems getting what i like to play to work. Of course there are still some games that wont work but get over it and find another one. Valheim works flawlessly so play that, its great so far.
@goggles789 Thats true. Linux STILL has a long long long way to go. Most companies who develop games still believe that Linux is just a tinkering operating system for nerds and geeks in this day in age. Hence why a lot of companies dont bother to develop for Linux or respect it when it comes to being a desktop operating system. One of the reasons being is that there is so many different distributions that the linux ecosystem doesn't know what they want and it confuses the developers. When I asked a few gaming developers about it, that is exactly what I was told in response from them. Linux ecosystem needs to get their shit together because they are confusing the world. The moment that Linux stops making thousands of distro's and concentrate on just a hand full, thats when things will matter. Until then, We will continue on this roller coaster nightmare for decades and even centuries to come. And no I am not talking about server editions, I am talking about desktop users. And for those who think I hate Linux you would be far from reality, Because I use Manjaro Linux for anything internet related and daily driver and windows only when I produce music.
I was eager to return to a WinPE/DISM style/method which had served me well as I was deploying Windows 7 Pro/Ent for my non profit client organizations back in the 2010's, right after I, like Craft Computing, got my Windows 7 MCT ;-) With the ever evolving of virtualization (which was barely a thing back then) it got frankly easier and smoother. Thanks for these 2 video tutorials !
@@Tommy-the-coffee-addict "One day of configuring Arch for a lifetime of ease" is a Confucius proverb had he used Arch. Although I can demonstrate the process of installing and configuring Arch with a usable X system with a sudo-enabled user in about 4 minutes with no rebooting or using any special custom automation. dd a zeroed-out file, configure it as a loop device, format, mount, pacstrap, copy over mirrorlist.conf and resolv.conf, arch-chroot into it, set time, date, and localization, install some more packages, create a user, set its group and passwd, configure the group in sudoers, exit the chroot and copy over the xorg.conf and the config(s) for your window manager. Then simply write it to a partition at one's convenience and update the bootloader. Probably faster than installing Windows. The caveat to that method is already having Arch and the arch-install-scripts installed. But Pacman can be built on other distros and there's a bootstrap tarball.
@@SirReptitious Ya dont think he could sell that, but I cant go through all that technical stuff. I need ready made ISO file which is already decrapyfied dude.
@@SirReptitious i am an IT guy but not into programing and i am scared af to use torrents. Never used it in my life. Never learned. I heard mixed things about it since the beginning
I can't begin to thank you and the original creator enough for the amazing script. I am finally running a De-crapified version of windows 10 and I am loving it.
@@xxTexas_outlaw71xxttv Got any sources for that? Unfortunately, removing Edge will be quite the task, if not impossible, since it's very integrated into the system. And usually not worth it, you don't have to run it if you're worried about security.
@@xxTexas_outlaw71xxttv i’ve seen a video use an application use Revo Uninstaller, which can delete microsoft apps that you can’t normally delete, where u cna uninstall edge but don’t take my word i’m not sure if it works fully.
You can get to system screen from control panel which I use only. I hate the "settings" windows. Wow, I'm going to rebuild my default W10Pro image with decrappify! I have a pc repair business and I customize windows every freakin time I install it, and im so tired of doing it! So many of my changes are in the decrappify script, sweet!! I did build a 2019 server with wds, but moved that to a VM instead of physical pc on the network. Craft's tutorials are the best on YT! Love it!!
Microsoft - its been 8 years, and still control panel / one place to manage things - could not agree with you more on this. I had an argument with Sinofsky about this early on.
I said back then, Microsoft needed to set the WIN 10 team a target for everything in current control panels to be in the new control panels within a time span - say 12 months, or be forced to return everything back to previous panels. Its still an outrageous issue and a huge mess in windows. They do slowly make progress, but it remains a mess.
@@justincameron9123 All CMDs should have been aliased into powershell properly. They have not done that, so inconsistent behaviour between shells is real.
Dude this is fantastic. I was looking for something like this as I just took over a company that just buys PCs and hands them out with no additional setup or administration. I am creating a WDS and was looking for a good way to create a base image. I owe you a beer.
@@AshtonSnapp and microsoft says windows is secure lol. The amount of times my brother has forgotten his password and I've had to do that same thing says otherwise lol.
If you open the command prompt during the install process, and preferably before you set up your partitions, you can type taskmgr into it, and in there you can set the setup.exe process to high priority and shave up to 10 minutes off of the install time.
I am so glad I found this. Wish an explanation like this existed 6 years ago, before I created a terrible workaround for field deployed machines. Great work.
Audit mode to make changes that you want for all users and installing some software. In the xml for sysprep have it copy profiles. While it doesn't do everything like default apps, you can export default apps after then import using dism. all new profiles will use the default apps correctly after that. This will also allow users to change default apps in the future as their profile will be cached. The only thing I have never really found a clear answer on is installing windows updates during audit mode. Had mixed results either way.
Thanks!!! I have modified and used your script to remove all the crap from my existing windows install and worked like a charm!!!! Super!!!! And dark mode now works :)
just my two centavitos.. on 23:24 i think, i would run the PS script by calling the script using PS it self. : powershell.exe -executionpolicy bypass -file Path_to_script that way you dont have to set it to unrestritcted... and if you forget to set it back... it will run that ps script for that session on that policy..
Alternatively, do "set-executionpolicy -executionpolicy bypass -scope process" in powershell and it will set the policy only for commands run in that session and will revert when you close the window
Great video. I can see where this would be good for making images that will be deployed to multiple systems, or multiple virtual machines. For some things and for a single user, it's probably easier to do a regular install, then uninstall or remove what isn't wanted. For example, you can right-click on Start-menu items, and either unpin them from the Start-menu, or, in some cases, uninstall the program.
what he says at 14:57 is actually wrong, in 20H2 go to the "new" About settings page and go fullscreen (or stretch the window out a bit) and you'll see "advanced system settings" on the right column. Leads to the same place, maybe even a bit quicker
Yes you can you see almost at the end where he created the .wim file you can copy that to your bootable USB driver -> Sources, and delete the install.wim and rename your wim file to the same name "install.wim". once done you can add your windows 10 key by creating a file name PID.txt in same folder sources, and set copy paste the following (replace the x with your key): *[PID]* *Value=XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX*
Thank you for the step-by-step instructions on how to create a clean Wins 10 image that I can use and install on a few pcs that I need to re-image. Thanks WB
Is that different from the one from Windows 7? I noticed when I copy the one from my 7 machine to 10 the name "Godmode" is blank and it WILL NOT change to anything, just the icon.
Cant hit subscribe hard enough. I love the way you laid this out, And removed all the tracking and advertising crap. Cant wait to deploy this through my domain. Cheers!
@@dkay-yt6ml I know he runs windows 10 pro in the video so why did he not choose Offline account? Can you read or did you not see the video? i'm sure you can do that in windows 10 home too. But have only run windows 10 pro so it's been a long time since I installed a computer with windows 10 home
Thanks for the video. I remember doing deployments like this a few years ago. Once MDT came out, I thought it was going to be easy, but like you I also found out how tricky it could be.
For work we use a system called KACE Systems Deployment Application. Which after watching your WDS and this video I realize they just took the WDS and made a linux server that implements with that, almost an overlay, that uses the DELL driver feed and scripting to deploy images to our machines, logging in to a web interface to manage everything. Seeing this has me wondering if we should do a setup with WDS instead of paying for a deployment server that has licenses and costs that could be saved. Also I have been trying to clean up our Windows images to get rid of everything that the script you provided does. Except for Laptop images that needs location tracking for the MDM. I just tested the new deployment of the image with our KACE SDA imaging with this image. Worked amazingly. Thank you!
From my experience where I've done something very similar, Windows 10 updated without any bloatware being installed. We've gone from 1709 to 1803 to 1809 to 1903 to 1909 to 2004 without any issues. So fingers crossed it stays this way!
Still in the middle of watching, just wanted to add that you can press Win+Pause and it will bring up that System menu up as well. IF your keyboard has the Pause/Break button. Thank you again for very direct and informative videos!
I volunteer for a non pofit doing IT with a Windows AD and Windows 10 deployment and 365. This seems like a good idea to set up for my own sanity and time lol.
I am in pure desperation mode. Thank you. Looks like a lot of work, but it's a grain of sand next to how much time and productivity I have lost on W10.
It's disappeared a few times, and I wanted to point out how much MS forces that option during a clean install, even on machines that will be joined to Active Directory environments.
@@CraftComputing The reason for Windows to ask for your microsoft account during Work setup is that it first assume you want to connect to a Microsoft 365 domain as it's quite seldom a user adds a computer to a local AD domain, nothing else.
@@JohanNyberg77 Then why hide it and make it so difficult to avoid. It is designed to make you think you HAVE to do it. This is called Dark Design and used all over when companies are forced to follow regulations for user privacy. That way they can claim they gave you the option but most users don't know they could skip it or eventually give up and click accept out of frustration. Same reason every site makes the cookie settings needlessly complex.
Going into the control panel then system and security then under System theres view the amount of ram and processor speed. That will take you to the old version.
The sweater coupled with the immediate ad caused me to move to a different video in my search. Ugh. Being said, I did sub I'd for nothing else to remind myself to come back to your other content since almost 200k subs. Hope that hideous sweater is a holiday thing, a wife gift, or a dare.
Yes you can (I hop... :)), I tinkt, if we convert the win10.wim to a win10.esd again, It should work! (then you copi the esd to the ios, and so on...) Sorry for my bad englisch ^^
Man i'm currently into taking the time to finally spare some time at my sysadmin job, ! Thanks alot for that very helpful video that comes in very handy, especially the decrapify script OMG THANKS!!!
The sysprep part does prepare the system back to a generic state. That's why you dont want to get back into booting up the prepped system and initialising it again with hardware specifics.
@leny lopez Make your own ISO, the whole point is to put in only the stuff that YOU need. It is not that hard. If you want a generic ISO, search “download windows 10” on Google and download the official ISO Microsoft makes. It is what’s considered adequate for the majority of users.
15:00 - You can access the System properties window through the Advanced system settings on the right side or in some versions listed towards the bottom of the page... Love the video and am pretty sure that this info might have been shared with you by someone by now...
MSMG Toolkit / NTLite actually remove the components from the component store.. deep inside.. as previous post indicates.. on next feature update, the crap will install again..
@@technicavivunt Don't use RUFUS, use Ventoy, it'll change your life. Also, if you have a big drive, you can have basically a mini WDS server in your pocket.
So one thing to note is that when you chose a Home account there is an offline account option on the lower left corner. Same place where you spotted the domain join option.
Yes, in 'some' of the Pro editions. I believe for 1903 it was missing, forcing you into the MS account. Also for Home, that option does not exist if you're connected to the internet.
@@CraftComputing yes. I know that. I was referring to pro and your video specifically. I'm also aware that there was at least one version where it was indeed gone.
@@CraftComputing Honestly I avoid being online when installing Windows as a matter of practice. I don't want it talking out _at all_ until I have it set up. If you remove everything it downloads automatically, why let it download in the first place?
I know this video is old, but I still have to thank you for it. As an old dude fiddling with a homelab to learn stuff, I appreciate videos like this, of which you have many. Keep it, up, I wanna learn more!
To quote someone smarter than me: Configuring Linux means adding and setting up features that you'd like to use. Configuring Windows means moving Microsoft obstacles out of your way. And rebooting.....
This is one of the biggest reasons I moved to Manjaro MATE for my main machines, and have a trusty old mid-2012 13in Macbook Pro on OSX Catalina for what won't work on Manjaro as they both just get out of my way, and let me get my work done.
Changing from edge browser to chrome is like cutting your left hand instead of the right one, if you are going to the trouble install FireFox instead. There is as much telemetry in chrome as there is in Windows before the process. Also change from Google to duck duck go as the default search engine.
10:02 When it comes to Cortana setup I like the way one of my IT instructors put it while he was teaching us how to set up a virtual machine: "'Not now' or ever, Cortana."
If i can add a suggestion or 2 : - Tell people how to get the ISO for windows 10 (go to MS download page where you get the tool, in Chrome : Developer options and then ctrl+shift+m (refresh page) and select the ISO you want) - Why not get the latest updates while making this image? - Make system changes like different background etc? Getting the ISO saves some time extracting the ESD making WIM file. (My ISO had the normal install.wim?) And just for a side note, all this works identically on ESXI 7 in a way. And thanks for this! Also try a beer called 'Westvleteren - Belgium'
Excellent work dude, I'd put money on the people who disliked this video are all micro$oft employees who don't like the idea of you removing all their hard work!
Fun note about the powershell script, a lot of those commands can be run against an offline wim file by mounting it, mounting the registry files in the image, and using "-Offline" when appropriate. The only thing that can't easily be done on an offline image via the script is disableing or removing scheduled tasks. The tasks are owned by trusted installer and the powershell script does not run in a way that lets you elevate and ownership of the registry keys and delete them... yes, as admin, on an offline image, trusted installer is still more powerful than Admin. I haven't fully worked that out yet. Also, a lot of these settings can also be set by GPO. A big save to ensure existing machines get the same settings without having to run the script. Running against an install.wim is as close as you can get to fixing these issues on the official windows install without doing the whole capture process.
Great Video! one tip for the legacy control panel and system page: Go to search and type control panel and you get the legacy control panel where you can go to system as well :D
I really liked the live view of crap disappearing from the Start Menu, it was very satisfying.
I remember making a clean Windows XP image that had all updates and service packs slipstreamed with it, so once Windows was installed it was one and done as far as Windows itself. It was soooooo nice being able to do it that way.
This brought back nightmares! Sysprep, Unattended Installations, Images and Answer files. You did an EXCELLENT JOB. Things are getting even more complicated for no real reason I can see, I am glad you are on top of it!
The old system properties window can also be accessed with hot key Windows+[Pause/Break]. Thanks Jeff!
wow! I only can imagine the amount of work to do this video. Thank you!
I believe he mentioned in the vid, one week.
@@robertkopp873 That´s how long, not how much work. :^)
... and half-a-lifetime of experience, to even know where to start on a project like this.
☝️
I'm not even finished watching the video but I felt compelled to comment to say...
THANK YOU for this. Please know that your week was not lost in vain. This is an invaluable wealth of information and I will be spending my upcoming 4 day weekend setting this up in my environment.
Also want to say, I love and empathize with the strong language you use against Microsoft's practices, i.e. "keylogger", because that's exactly what it is. Privacy invasions shouldn't be allowed to get away with being called "inking and typing" which makes it sound like something innocent.
Dear sir, when you said "It's been 8 years please unify your control panel". All of the Windows User following you felt that. (Emotionally cries). Regards
Windows: "We restart automatically when you aren't using your PC"
Me: "If my PC is on, I am using it"
And, if I'm using it, why TF is it trying to install updates?!!?!
I don't know about you but my pc is running 24/7... I never turn it off and although I agree it shouldn't restart your pc for any reason and leave it to the user to restart themselves, there will be users that like me, leave their computer on all the time even when not "using" it.
Well Done sir, using official tools can be a bit tricky. Seeing WDS again always gives me PTSD.
I absolutely hate the ADK tools and generally end up shelling out money or just saying forget this and setting up a FOG environment. Cheers!
I spent quite a few years doing system images like this on the daily. One of my certs is actually for WDS with Windows Vista 🤣🤣😭
@@CraftComputing I don't not envy doing Desktop Images, building keeping our server images updated and meeting CIS is enough work for us. We dropped WDS for VMware Templates (OS , Either 2016 or 2019) with customization specs for each of the environment we deploy to.
Good Video, and i like how you explained the script.
@@CraftComputing Well it shows man, for anyone wanting to use WDS this is the video to watch.
I remember using WDS and System Essentials Suite with Essential Business Server in the late 2000s. It was a complete Nightmare. I swore never again, and I've kept that promise lol.
Fog forever!
@@CraftComputing 😨😳
Imma be honest, you're significantly better than Linus Tech Tips. Not that hes bad, its just your content is more interesting and for a casual pc tinkerer, any tips i can get are appreciated.
I can't tell you how helpful this is. Thank you for taking the time and making this video. Much appreciated!
You make it look so easy. I must confess that not being much of a computer savvy everything flew over my head, however your style of presentation kept me amazed and glued to the entire video. Your dexterity with the operating system is impressive indeed.
This process is a perfect example of how Microsoft rarely makes improvements to Windows that serve anyone other than themselves. This process has always been needlessly complex and seems to somehow get worse with every release.
In their defense their _are_ actual improvements. Having said that, these improvements are overshadowed by all the new "features".
@@eDoc2020 in our defence, technical previews of Windows 10 were better than the first release, which was better than the second, which was better than the third ans so on.
It's 2021 already, LITERALLY, and just to rock some 1980's retro compatibility, which sometimes fails to work and let's be honest VMs can solve all issues there, they can't seem to bring *real* improvements on the table because they *WANT* to "stay in the past"
One of the many reasons I switched to Linux full time years ago. Fragmenting an OS into thousands of FOSS projects somehow works better than Microsoft's abusive alcoholic dad method.
@@eDoc2020 Not the point
@@eDoc2020 Not the point
during the first log in when it says we are getting things ready for you, you can do control alt delete and sign out then sign in again
I also do this with a user and yeah he debloat a bit but i think there is some problems in the system
@@Nighterlev ik i also debloat windows a long ago and i needed to reboot with my usb :(
not with the latest builds of windows. that bit isn't skipable unless you use the WDS to remove the setup.
@@chubbysumo2230 rainy say when there is the black screen with hello etc and yeah it works im in windows 20h2
@@chubbysumo2230 not the setup the first log in when old versions would say preparing your desktop
Hi Jeff! Since I dont have a homelab and/or the ability do any sort of PXE Booting I used your videos to get 90% of the way there - the last 10% I ended up making a new ISO using oscdimg to create a new Disk Image file and then burned that to a flashdrive to use for my new PC. Thank you for the awesome video!
Great Video. Lovin' the Proxmox themed jumper 😀
@12:01 The only preinstalled game a Pro version of Windows should have is 3D Pinball.
www.myabandonware.com/game/space-cadet-3d-pinball-bc1
@@CraftComputing Oh my God. I've been wanting this in my PC again for years now lol. Does it have any compatibility issues on windows 10?
Thanks for sending me down that rabbit hole. There's an hour I won't get back
@@will11690 Should work fine. In fact, most old Windows games work fine on Win10; you can just copy-paste from Windows 7 and they should work. Pinball is no exception.
@@kylehaas864 And there are wrappers for those that don't work. There's a tool or hack out there 99.99% of the time that can make anything work on Windows lol
one of the most satisfying subs I've done in a while.
Amazing what content we can find.
This is Awesome! I've been wanting to strip down Win10 for years.
I really like that long pause after choosing the options to create users for organisations and still being given the option to log in with a microsoft account.
I, i just formated my pc 5 minutes ago dude. Should have waited another 15 minutes before doing that lol
Can still do it, probably well worth it
You can still manaully remove as much junk as you can
@@fred-youtube nit as much as the debloatware script would do for ya, unfortunately, thanks to Microsoft
@@fred-youtube Yeah but it comes back when a new user is created, you literally have to "break it" to "fix it"
I come back to this every 6 months when we need to make a new image at work. Please don't ever delete this, I hate reading Microsoft documentation lol
FYI, settings that require Windows to be active, such as dark mode and show all icons, will not apply via the script unless Window is activated.
Windows doesn't need to be activate, just use registry tweaks
@TheDireWolf kmspico is abandonware and I wish people would stop recommending it. There are "hwid" projects made for windows 10 and you should check those out.
Yes, Windows 10 needs to be activated to personalize, BUT ONLY FOR doing it in the Settings app. Unactivated Windows doesn't effect personalization outside the Settings app. The problem isn't that. I say this from experience, you can even open and use theme files on unactivated Windows.
@@pf100andahalf Care to list some?
@@heroldmutebi8200 massgravel hwid
Much appreciated, if you prepare for MD-100 exam, this video and the one related to it is the way to go. better than paid courses !
I enjoy your videos! I've been in IT awhile and it's nice to have the resources from experienced folks as yourself. One thing of note, when capturing the image I noticed my wim file creation went really fast. This was because I was targetting the C:\ which was the Fat32 partition and only 10MB in size. I discovered that the D: drive was the drive I wanted to capture. Just a note for some out there =)
Dude, massive thanks. I was so confused and just assumed it was either sysprep being weird or the Decrappify script messing up, never thought about something as obvious as selecting the wrong drive XD
@@sarco5138 dude 7 months later and you saved me as well :)
A year later and you're still a goat. Much Thanks.
Great guide. I already had WDS up and running, but didn't have a change to find out how to make a custom image. You made my day, by making this tutorial. I changed some settings in the script, but everything worked exactly as you explained, except slower, because I use a low powered Hyper-v server.
For user account, you can go to personal use and then Offline Account in the bottom left and it does the same thing.
Yep not sure how he misses that
@@joshg1244 because it's not designed to be obvious?..
@@DeCapitanOG Note how small the text is, on older versions of the build, it used to be smaller. How moronic of Microsoft
Also, if your device happens to be connected to the internet at that time, you have no option for offline, at least with Win10 Home, I was dumb and did that on my new laptop, I think I will do this and create some new builds for both of my laptops and PCs in the house.
In 20H2 if you have network it wont show the option for offline account until you go back and forward again, or do not have network connected.
Helpful is an understatement. I am now building images for my different clients. Thank you. YOUR NAME WILL BE SUNG AMONG THE HEROES!!
You can press CTRL+SHIFT+F3 at the first screen of the setup (at 8:15) and it will skip the whole setup and enter audit mode which will save you from having to mess with the user accounts.
Also you can create a capture image within WDS which automates a lot of the commands you had to enter during the image capture and it automates adding the captured image into WDS.
@Pedro Corrêa literally just google YOU'RE OWN REPLY and I found the answer at the top. :P
Hi Jeff,
Perfect Contents Creator, Pro. , Cute and deserve to support you, man.
Microsoft and other hardware/software companies are collecting private data about all their consumers, I've spent days disabling unwanted services that forced to be automatically started each time you log in to windows, the digital world too scary to live within without needed knowledge among all unexpected challenges.
Now, by customized windows 10, by removing a bunch of crap using the idea you've clearly shown in the video,
Now, I am totally able to see what's going on behind the scenes ;).
Great job Jeff.
You could skip your setup all the way to 16:12 next time by the first time you enter OOBE, simply press Shift+F3. This will skip OOBE completely, and take you straight into the Administrator logon in Audit mode to customize the image. No need to make a temporary user account, fighting past the OOBE screens the first time, or having to delete the user account and profile. Go straight to the declutter step.
SIMPLY PRESSpress Ctrl+Shift+F3 . This will skip OOBE completely, and take you straight into the Administrator logon in Audit mode to customize the image. No need to make a temporary user account, fighting past the OOBE screens the first time, or having to delete the user account and profile.
Yeah Boy lets config Windows again and again this is so much fun!
I have query I want to sysprep a physical desktop including drivers as I can then apply that image to same type hardware and don't worry to install drivers
Some years ago this info would have saved me a LOT of trouble. Thanks for setting up this video showing our options. Got a new sub :)
8:58 - There's a link to "Offline Account" at the bottom left of the dialog box.
What a clear concise presentation. Just what I was looking for!!
tHANKS FOR MAKING IT CLEARER THAN IT WAS ....
This entire video is essentially a Linux advertisement
All this BS is exactly why I switched to Linux as my daily driver OS.
\o/
I have not had Windows on any of my hardware in over a year and a half and not even a VM in over a year. Praise KDE and it's GNU/Linux friends.
Yes! Thanks to Vulkan, Proton, Lutris, etc. I have had very little problems getting what i like to play to work. Of course there are still some games that wont work but get over it and find another one. Valheim works flawlessly so play that, its great so far.
@goggles789
Thats true. Linux STILL has a long long long way to go.
Most companies who develop games still believe that Linux is just a tinkering operating system for nerds and geeks in this day in age. Hence why a lot of companies dont bother to develop for Linux or respect it when it comes to being a desktop operating system.
One of the reasons being is that there is so many different distributions that the linux ecosystem doesn't know what they want and it confuses the developers.
When I asked a few gaming developers about it, that is exactly what I was told in response from them.
Linux ecosystem needs to get their shit together because they are confusing the world. The moment that Linux stops making thousands of distro's and concentrate on just a hand full, thats when things will matter. Until then, We will continue on this roller coaster nightmare for decades and even centuries to come.
And no I am not talking about server editions, I am talking about desktop users.
And for those who think I hate Linux you would be far from reality, Because
I use Manjaro Linux for anything internet related and daily driver and windows only when I produce music.
I was eager to return to a WinPE/DISM style/method which had served me well as I was deploying Windows 7 Pro/Ent for my non profit client organizations back in the 2010's, right after I, like Craft Computing, got my Windows 7 MCT ;-) With the ever evolving of virtualization (which was barely a thing back then) it got frankly easier and smoother. Thanks for these 2 video tutorials !
my school's computer had web office icons, trial office icons and office 2016 icons, good luck picking the right one
Jeez that's a lot of work.. well done figuring this all out!
how is making a clean windows image look almost as hard as installing god damn gentoo
respect for making this
Next time I'll just install Arch 🤣
@@CraftComputing LOL
unless i use the zen installer (or some equivalent),it feels like making a system on my terms can feel like a full-day endeavor
@@CraftComputing You rang? I gotta say, Arch is way easier than that!
@@Tommy-the-coffee-addict "One day of configuring Arch for a lifetime of ease" is a Confucius proverb had he used Arch. Although I can demonstrate the process of installing and configuring Arch with a usable X system with a sudo-enabled user in about 4 minutes with no rebooting or using any special custom automation. dd a zeroed-out file, configure it as a loop device, format, mount, pacstrap, copy over mirrorlist.conf and resolv.conf, arch-chroot into it, set time, date, and localization, install some more packages, create a user, set its group and passwd, configure the group in sudoers, exit the chroot and copy over the xorg.conf and the config(s) for your window manager.
Then simply write it to a partition at one's convenience and update the bootloader. Probably faster than installing Windows. The caveat to that method is already having Arch and the arch-install-scripts installed. But Pacman can be built on other distros and there's a bootstrap tarball.
*cries in broken LFS installation*
How could there be 315k views and only 15k likes?
Amazing work! Thanks for sharing.
It'd be great if you uploaded the result ISO so that your subs could try it out
I would even pay for it
@@SirReptitious Ya dont think he could sell that, but I cant go through all that technical stuff. I need ready made ISO file which is already decrapyfied dude.
@@SirReptitious Cool. but how can we get this ready made ISO file? Lol
@@SirReptitious i am an IT guy but not into programing and i am scared af to use torrents. Never used it in my life. Never learned. I heard mixed things about it since the beginning
Pretty sure that’s piracy.
I can't begin to thank you and the original creator enough for the amazing script. I am finally running a De-crapified version of windows 10 and I am loving it.
Any download link for "the clean/modified one"?
Exactly what I thought 😂share it
@@turdy909 Probably against Microsoft's licensing agreement. Other sites that used to provide Windows images have been shutdown.
@@xxTexas_outlaw71xxttv Got any sources for that? Unfortunately, removing Edge will be quite the task, if not impossible, since it's very integrated into the system. And usually not worth it, you don't have to run it if you're worried about security.
@@xxTexas_outlaw71xxttv i’ve seen a video use an application use Revo Uninstaller, which can delete microsoft apps that you can’t normally delete, where u cna uninstall edge but don’t take my word i’m not sure if it works fully.
You can get to system screen from control panel which I use only. I hate the "settings" windows. Wow, I'm going to rebuild my default W10Pro image with decrappify! I have a pc repair business and I customize windows every freakin time I install it, and im so tired of doing it! So many of my changes are in the decrappify script, sweet!! I did build a 2019 server with wds, but moved that to a VM instead of physical pc on the network. Craft's tutorials are the best on YT! Love it!!
Microsoft - its been 8 years, and still control panel / one place to manage things - could not agree with you more on this. I had an argument with Sinofsky about this early on.
I said back then, Microsoft needed to set the WIN 10 team a target for everything in current control panels to be in the new control panels within a time span - say 12 months, or be forced to return everything back to previous panels. Its still an outrageous issue and a huge mess in windows. They do slowly make progress, but it remains a mess.
what about cmd vs powershell
@@justincameron9123 All CMDs should have been aliased into powershell properly. They have not done that, so inconsistent behaviour between shells is real.
Dude this is fantastic. I was looking for something like this as I just took over a company that just buys PCs and hands them out with no additional setup or administration. I am creating a WDS and was looking for a good way to create a base image. I owe you a beer.
just realized you can open cmd prompt in Windows install using shift + F10
I had to use that once to reset the password on my sister’s laptop.
@@AshtonSnapp and microsoft says windows is secure lol. The amount of times my brother has forgotten his password and I've had to do that same thing says otherwise lol.
same. had no idea.
I use that shortcut a lot.
If you open the command prompt during the install process, and preferably before you set up your partitions, you can type taskmgr into it, and in there you can set the setup.exe process to high priority and shave up to 10 minutes off of the install time.
I've seen your videos in the past and I like them well enough.
This video earns both my respect and a sub.
Well done and thank you very much.
This reminds me how glad I am to no longer be a Windows server admin...
Me too
how am I supposed to feel about this?
this Thursday I will be doing exam for 70-742 as last part of mcsa requirement.
@@chaosmassive8627 GL! 😅
Being a Windows Admin bought me a house, so definitely won't knock it as a career choice ;-)
@@chaosmassive8627 Windows admin is a dying career path. I moved away from it very early on in my career.
I am so glad I found this. Wish an explanation like this existed 6 years ago, before I created a terrible workaround for field deployed machines. Great work.
You should try doing this in audit mode. I build images for my work everyday
I was going to say the same.
Can you expand on this?
Audit mode to make changes that you want for all users and installing some software. In the xml for sysprep have it copy profiles. While it doesn't do everything like default apps, you can export default apps after then import using dism. all new profiles will use the default apps correctly after that. This will also allow users to change default apps in the future as their profile will be cached. The only thing I have never really found a clear answer on is installing windows updates during audit mode. Had mixed results either way.
@@deeds793 updates is easy. Feature updates takes some doing but can be done
@@deeds793 from what I’ve read updates are ok as long as they’re not feature upgrades.
I passed Windows 7 certs back in 2012. My career path took a different path but I remember doing this. Nice video , well explained!
Microsoft : Do you want to see ads that we decide you should like or totally random ones?
Thanks!!! I have modified and used your script to remove all the crap from my existing windows install and worked like a charm!!!! Super!!!! And dark mode now works :)
just my two centavitos.. on 23:24 i think, i would run the PS script by calling the script using PS it self. :
powershell.exe -executionpolicy bypass -file Path_to_script
that way you dont have to set it to unrestritcted... and if you forget to set it back... it will run that ps script for that session on that policy..
Nice, thnx
Alternatively, do "set-executionpolicy -executionpolicy bypass -scope process" in powershell and it will set the policy only for commands run in that session and will revert when you close the window
@@phillipthompson2347 nice
Great video.
I can see where this would be good for making images that will be deployed to multiple systems, or multiple virtual machines.
For some things and for a single user, it's probably easier to do a regular install, then uninstall or remove what isn't wanted.
For example, you can right-click on Start-menu items, and either unpin them from the Start-menu, or, in some cases, uninstall the program.
No it's not
31:59 dang, it didn't keep the setting to open "This PC" instead of "Quick Access" when you open File Explorer
first fix i always does
What a barrel of fun WDS is. I use SCCM to do this at work which is only marginally better, albeit more powerful. Thanks for the video!
Only bit is missing is a way to customize the task bar to be a standard set of icons
You can do it thorough the answer file.
3:33 Windows 10 *Home* Oops 🤔😂🤫
14:57 OMG thank-you Jeff, that's a handy thing to know 👍
Great video Jeff, Happy New Year to you 😇
what he says at 14:57 is actually wrong, in 20H2 go to the "new" About settings page and go fullscreen (or stretch the window out a bit) and you'll see "advanced system settings" on the right column. Leads to the same place, maybe even a bit quicker
@@sleepyostrichthing3599 agreed you can get to the same links but the only way to find that actual screen is as advised.
Its to bad we could not get this as an iso that we could install and then put in our own product key.
Just use oscdimg to create the iso including the custom wim
Yes you can you see almost at the end where he created the .wim file you can copy that to your bootable USB driver -> Sources, and delete the install.wim and rename your wim file to the same name "install.wim".
once done you can add your windows 10 key by creating a file name PID.txt in same folder sources, and set copy paste the following (replace the x with your key):
*[PID]*
*Value=XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX*
Thank you for the step-by-step instructions on how to create a clean Wins 10 image that I can use and install on a few pcs that I need to re-image. Thanks WB
Try the Windows 10 godmode control panel. 1 unified panel to control everything. Nothing nested, nothing hidden
Is that different from the one from Windows 7? I noticed when I copy the one from my 7 machine to 10 the name "Godmode" is blank and it WILL NOT change to anything, just the icon.
@@AceBoy2099 you need to create the new folder and copy/paste the code string into the folder name slot.
GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C
@@mattmilby
I'll try it next time I have my 10 machine running. But if its the same code as the Win7 version I tried it and was still blank.
Thanks for the tip, I had no idea this feature even existed.
Cant hit subscribe hard enough. I love the way you laid this out, And removed all the tracking and advertising crap. Cant wait to deploy this through my domain. Cheers!
9:02 just FYI there is an "Offline account" option on the screen at this point instead of going through the other route
not just me.
nice that it was not just me who saw it. plus as many times as you have installed computers or WMs
It's not on Windows 10 Home though
@@dkay-yt6ml
I know he runs windows 10 pro in the video so why did he not choose Offline account? Can you read or did you not see the video?
i'm sure you can do that in windows 10 home too.
But have only run windows 10 pro so it's been a long time since I installed a computer with windows 10 home
@@rogerpettersson89yeah I guess he could've done that.
@@dkay-yt6ml it is. you have to disconnect from the internet since more recent win10 feature updates to get the option to use a local account.
the powershell script is next level. thank you Jeff!!
Do a video on Windows Server Update Services next.
yes, would be great to know more about the update service. Do some of these preferences get discarded on a major windows upgrade?
Link,broken to many redirects when trying it at the moment.
گه نخور
Thanks for the video. I remember doing deployments like this a few years ago. Once MDT came out, I thought it was going to be easy, but like you I also found out how tricky it could be.
Unified settings would really be nice...
We used to have that. Ah the good old days
For work we use a system called KACE Systems Deployment Application. Which after watching your WDS and this video I realize they just took the WDS and made a linux server that implements with that, almost an overlay, that uses the DELL driver feed and scripting to deploy images to our machines, logging in to a web interface to manage everything. Seeing this has me wondering if we should do a setup with WDS instead of paying for a deployment server that has licenses and costs that could be saved.
Also I have been trying to clean up our Windows images to get rid of everything that the script you provided does. Except for Laptop images that needs location tracking for the MDM. I just tested the new deployment of the image with our KACE SDA imaging with this image. Worked amazingly. Thank you!
You could use vmware os optimizer to do same thing in minutes.
"De-crapify" 🤣🤣🤣🤣 love it. Very good video, love the nerdy pullover lol
Cool. Now what happens to that install when major update hits? And I don't mean the iso, I mean the host.
i was wondering the same thing
From my experience where I've done something very similar, Windows 10 updated without any bloatware being installed. We've gone from 1709 to 1803 to 1809 to 1903 to 1909 to 2004 without any issues. So fingers crossed it stays this way!
Still in the middle of watching, just wanted to add that you can press Win+Pause and it will bring up that System menu up as well. IF your keyboard has the Pause/Break button. Thank you again for very direct and informative videos!
I volunteer for a non pofit doing IT with a Windows AD and Windows 10 deployment and 365. This seems like a good idea to set up for my own sanity and time lol.
I am in pure desperation mode. Thank you. Looks like a lot of work, but it's a grain of sand next to how much time and productivity I have lost on W10.
9:27 Why not just use the "Offline account" option in the bottom left rather than going through the organization option screen?
Because that setting has disappeared a few times over the years.
It's disappeared a few times, and I wanted to point out how much MS forces that option during a clean install, even on machines that will be joined to Active Directory environments.
@@CraftComputing The reason for Windows to ask for your microsoft account during Work setup is that it first assume you want to connect to a Microsoft 365 domain as it's quite seldom a user adds a computer to a local AD domain, nothing else.
@@JohanNyberg77 Then why hide it and make it so difficult to avoid. It is designed to make you think you HAVE to do it. This is called Dark Design and used all over when companies are forced to follow regulations for user privacy. That way they can claim they gave you the option but most users don't know they could skip it or eventually give up and click accept out of frustration. Same reason every site makes the cookie settings needlessly complex.
Superb walkthrough! I think Microsoft should see this in order to understand how incredibly annoying all the bloat ware is. Keep it clean!
Going into the control panel then system and security then under System theres view the amount of ram and processor speed. That will take you to the old version.
nope, I am on 20H2 and it takes me to the new settings.
The sweater coupled with the immediate ad caused me to move to a different video in my search. Ugh.
Being said, I did sub I'd for nothing else to remind myself to come back to your other content since almost 200k subs. Hope that hideous sweater is a holiday thing, a wife gift, or a dare.
Is it possible to use these images outside of the WDS server? As in with a bootable usb stick?
Yes you can (I hop... :)), I tinkt, if we convert the win10.wim to a win10.esd again, It should work! (then you copi the esd to the ios, and so on...) Sorry for my bad englisch ^^
Yes, you can.
@@dynbitti9607 you don't need to convert it. Wim will work fine as long as you don't want to save space.
yes, you just have to copy the OG windows setup files, replace the OG install.wim with your custom one then create a ISO from the files.
Man i'm currently into taking the time to finally spare some time at my sysadmin job, ! Thanks alot for that very helpful video that comes in very handy, especially the decrapify script OMG THANKS!!!
Can this be used to create a general ISO I can use anywhere, just cleaned up? Or are they tied to a specific hardware?
It is generic, use anywhere.
The sysprep part does prepare the system back to a generic state. That's why you dont want to get back into booting up the prepped system and initialising it again with hardware specifics.
@leny lopez Make your own ISO, the whole point is to put in only the stuff that YOU need. It is not that hard. If you want a generic ISO, search “download windows 10” on Google and download the official ISO Microsoft makes. It is what’s considered adequate for the majority of users.
15:00 - You can access the System properties window through the Advanced system settings on the right side or in some versions listed towards the bottom of the page... Love the video and am pretty sure that this info might have been shared with you by someone by now...
This is what I actually call a debloated windows iso video, not just using msmg or ntlite like everyone else does
MSMG Toolkit / NTLite actually remove the components from the component store.. deep inside.. as previous post indicates.. on next feature update, the crap will install again..
Well done and seriously worth watching! Thank you for your efforts.
But is there a way I can just burn this “clean” install as an .iso to a thumb drive? I don’t want to run my own WDS at home.
@@technicavivunt There is no install.WIM file, only install.ESD file
@@technicavivunt Don't use RUFUS, use Ventoy, it'll change your life. Also, if you have a big drive, you can have basically a mini WDS server in your pocket.
So one thing to note is that when you chose a Home account there is an offline account option on the lower left corner. Same place where you spotted the domain join option.
Yes, in 'some' of the Pro editions. I believe for 1903 it was missing, forcing you into the MS account. Also for Home, that option does not exist if you're connected to the internet.
@@CraftComputing yes. I know that. I was referring to pro and your video specifically. I'm also aware that there was at least one version where it was indeed gone.
@@CraftComputing Honestly I avoid being online when installing Windows as a matter of practice. I don't want it talking out _at all_ until I have it set up. If you remove everything it downloads automatically, why let it download in the first place?
Is there any way to use that image for creating a bootable flash drive?
I know this video is old, but I still have to thank you for it. As an old dude fiddling with a homelab to learn stuff, I appreciate videos like this, of which you have many. Keep it, up, I wanna learn more!
To quote someone smarter than me:
Configuring Linux means adding and setting up features that you'd like to use.
Configuring Windows means moving Microsoft obstacles out of your way. And rebooting.....
Chris Titus?
This is one of the biggest reasons I moved to Manjaro MATE for my main machines, and have a trusty old mid-2012 13in Macbook Pro on OSX Catalina for what won't work on Manjaro as they both just get out of my way, and let me get my work done.
@@Mrhorribubble He may have said it as well at some point, but it was a comment on one of his recent videos.
So absolutely true !
You forgot one thing with Windows. You still need to add your desired programs after you disable the Microsoft crap.
Happy new year everyone. Extremely useful information in this one. Thanks for sharing.
*ALSO TO YOU ..MISTER (HOPE IT WILL BE BETTER 2021)*
Will this method image in any other pre-installed software like Google Chrome, Firefox, LibreOffice etc?
You can certainly preinstall those before capturing the image.
Changing from edge browser to chrome is like cutting your left hand instead of the right one, if you are going to the trouble install FireFox instead. There is as much telemetry in chrome as there is in Windows before the process. Also change from Google to duck duck go as the default search engine.
10:02 When it comes to Cortana setup I like the way one of my IT instructors put it while he was teaching us how to set up a virtual machine:
"'Not now' or ever, Cortana."
another good way to get the system prperties is running sysdm.cpl
If i can add a suggestion or 2 :
- Tell people how to get the ISO for windows 10 (go to MS download page where you get the tool, in Chrome : Developer options and then ctrl+shift+m (refresh page) and select the ISO you want)
- Why not get the latest updates while making this image?
- Make system changes like different background etc?
Getting the ISO saves some time extracting the ESD making WIM file. (My ISO had the normal install.wim?)
And just for a side note, all this works identically on ESXI 7 in a way.
And thanks for this! Also try a beer called 'Westvleteren - Belgium'
Excellent work dude, I'd put money on the people who disliked this video are all micro$oft employees who don't like the idea of you removing all their hard work!
Fun note about the powershell script, a lot of those commands can be run against an offline wim file by mounting it, mounting the registry files in the image, and using "-Offline" when appropriate. The only thing that can't easily be done on an offline image via the script is disableing or removing scheduled tasks. The tasks are owned by trusted installer and the powershell script does not run in a way that lets you elevate and ownership of the registry keys and delete them... yes, as admin, on an offline image, trusted installer is still more powerful than Admin. I haven't fully worked that out yet. Also, a lot of these settings can also be set by GPO. A big save to ensure existing machines get the same settings without having to run the script.
Running against an install.wim is as close as you can get to fixing these issues on the official windows install without doing the whole capture process.
Would love to see a benchmark on identical machines. Fresh Windows default install vs this stripped Windows install.
Great Video! one tip for the legacy control panel and system page: Go to search and type control panel and you get the legacy control panel where you can go to system as well :D