bphlpt

@BYTE-ME, the only point you made that I agree with is the second one regarding excessive OS slimming, but I'm sure there are legitimate situations where even that is useful - it's just not for 99.99999% of users. If you, or anyone, do not wish to use any particular tools to try to accomplish either of the other two tasks you mentioned, which, while still not for all users or for all situations, I personally feel are applicable for a larger group of users, then don't use them. There is no need to belittle anyone else for trying to achieve their goals, even if you feel they are misguided. Cheers and Regards

@OnePiece, please recheck the link you meant to post. That one goes nowhere. Cheers and Regards

Unfortunately, as OnePiece has opined, NT6.x Integrator has not caught on like many of the other OS integrating/building methods. It's a shame after all the capabilities were built into it. Of the few I know that use it, either Reaper or RP (over at Ryan's - http://www.ryanvm.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=29 - shows many Win7 threads where NT6.x Integrator is discussed including some tutorials) would probably be your best bet for info other than OnePiece himself. Cheers and Regards

Rick, your dropbox link: (Integrate this (before you slim) to activate/enable LDR/QFE branch:) is a dead end. Cheers and Regards

Well said. The same can be said regarding one's choice of OS, even Win8, though I will probably not use it. What works best for you is what you should use. Cheers and Regards

@Madcat, Lego brought up a point that might have an impact on your results. You should always add/integrate all the updates you are going to add before you do any removals. But as much as I understand your desire to minimize the size of both your install disk and the resulting build, with the availability of USB thumb/disk drives for installs, and the cost and sizes of both memory and disks these days, I just don't see as many advantages today as there used to be for these efforts, and there shouldn't be any perceivable difference to the end user. For reliability, ease of use, and ease of updating I would just use Win Toolkit. Cheers and Regards EDIT:

This is of course assuming the exe is already set up to be silent as kirk implied. Cheers and Regards

I know that Lego uses the current version of Win Toolkit on his own personal install of Win 8, so apparently he thinks it does work properly. Why do you think it doesn't? If you think that it should shrink the install.wim significantly, I'm sorry but it is currently not designed to do that. I'll let Lego respond further when he sees this post. Cheers and Regards

From what I understand, unlike in the past, 4.5 is supposed to totally replace 4.0. If you install 4.5 you won't need 4.0 at all. Cheers and Regards

If you want help with this, I think you are going to need to provide a translation for what is printed in your screenshot. Cheers and Regards

Thanks. Now it makes perfect sense. Though it then does raise the question of why there should be a built-in tool in Win Toolkit to convert cab to msu, and not one to convert msu to cab. Is this a holdover from when Win Toolkit did not handle cab files directly? So I'll ask dotfusion's question again - Sorry to be a pest, just trying to understand what is the best, fastest, most preferred method and why. Thanks for your answers and your patience, not to mention this wonderful tool! Ahh! Now it all makes perfect sense! I should have caught that as well. Cheers and Regards

Thanks for the clarification, I think. LOL I'm still trying to get my head around where it gets the cab from if you only integrate the msu and not the cab. I must still be missing something obvious. Isn't the msu compressed in the cab? So if you only supply the msu, where does it get the cab? Whereas if you only supply the cab, doesn't it have to extract the msu from the cab? Do I have it backwards somehow? Cheers and Regards

Dumb question - This seems backwards, since if it was already in msu form you save the extracting step, right? Or did I misunderstand something? Cheers and Regards

Though I guess it might be helpful, if it was possible, for Win Toolkit to distinguish between updates that aren't applicable vs ones that are either broken or otherwise fail to install. Cheers and Regards

The cough is always my nemesis. If I can just keep the cough from really taking hold I'm usually good to go in about a week. If I can't, it seems to take two or three. Annoying as hell. Cheers and Regards

Done as well. Cheers and Regards

I assume the end date is actually later than September 23rd? If so, please count me in. (You already have my name so I won't repeat it here, unless necessary that is. ) Cheers and Regards

I just noticed the requirement for posting full name - John Welch - Sorry, I thought the name needed was the name associated with the Facebook/Google+ account, neither of which have my real name, and I usually never register my software with my real name either. My Facebook "like" was on time though. Does that count? LOL Cheers and Regards

You can also do it "manually". It ends up nice and clean, but it is definitely NOT graceful and is NOT for the faint of heart. It involves installing Win 7 RTM in a VM, switching to Audit mode, installing SP1, generalize, convert to a VHD, mount the VHD and clean up a bit, convert the VHD to an install.wim with imageX, replace the install.wim in Win 7 RTM with the new one you created, etc, etc. This method is referred to here - http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/133491-windows-7-keep-list/page__view__findpost__p__995141 Cheers and Regards

Build dates shouldn't matter, rather the version numbers of the individual files, and if one has any "extra" files of course. If they are the same, then the iso's should be equivalent. Cheers and Regards

Please at least TRY to search for an unknown term with Google or your favorite search engine. The very first result: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_flu - Cheers and Regards

Update request filled

Liked on Facebook: Bp Hlpt Cheers and Regards

You can select as many images as you want to update with the Win Toolkit All-In-One Disc Creator - http://www.wincert.net/forum/topic/9574-all-in-one-disk-creator/ - and it will make as many passes as required, updating one image per pass. Cheers and Regards

Rick has said he will release a pack for 4.5 after there has been an update released for 4.5. Cheers and Regards