with a 40 euro (around $45) yearly fee, so don’t stump up the cash
until you’re sure it can do what you’re looking for. NTLite can
work on live Windows installations, but for our purposes, we’ll
stick to tweaking the ISO we prepared earlier. Click “Add,” then
select “Image Directory,” and point it at the directory containing
your Windows installer file—you should see a list of the operating
systems included within the “install.wim” file in the ISO directory.
We should mention at this point that the WIM (or Windows Image)
file is the bit we’re really working on here—the rest of the ISO is
pretty tangential to this task.
Double-click the version you’re looking to work on, and NTLite
mounts it internally, which may take a while depending on your
hardware. Once it’s turned green, head to the left column, and
click “Components.” Read the stern warning, hit “OK,” and you’re
into the meat of it. Expand the categories—everything the Free
version of NTLite doesn’t allow you to remove is labeled in blue,
but there’s plenty that can be cut without stumping up any cash.WHAT TO DROP
First, and most obviously, head to the bottom of the list, expand
“Windows Apps,” then open up the “Apps” section. Getting rid of
these isn’t going to cut a large amount of size from your eventual
ISO, but it’ll certainly clean up your “Start” menu, and stop the
irritation of unified platform apps opening up your files whenGETTING LEAN
Not that we’re about to suggest that
cutting down an ISO to its bare minimum
is a complete waste of time, but there is
an alternative (of sorts) officially
sanctioned by Microsoft itself. It’s called,
appropriately, Windows 10 Lean.
Intended to be used on tablets with
16GB of storage, Windows 10 Lean cuts the
installer size by a hefty 2GB over Windows
10 Pro, and takes up only 6.5GB of drive
space when installed —around half the
usual average Windows footprint. There’s
not much in there beyond Windows itself
(only around 200MB of the Lean install
is taken up by apps), and it’s very much
a modern-only OS; while you can install
standard x86 applications, unlike the
old Windows RT, basically every legacy
component is gone. Control Panel, for
example, is present, but eerily empty.
Bad news, however, or perhaps good
news if you’ve put in the effort to trim your
own ISO: Although it appeared in Insider
Preview build 17650, Lean hasn’t been
seen since, and it’s disappeared from
Microsoft’s UUP servers. That particular
build is out there if you look for it, though,
and we would be very surprised if it (or
something similar) didn’t appear in future
Windows 10 builds.
Windows 10 IoT Core runs on just 2GB of
storage, and is designed for embedding, so
can run on tiny devices like the Raspberry
Pi. It’s not Windows as you know it—there’sno command prompt, no desktop, and its
GUI is limited to running one Microsoft
universal platform app at a time—but it’s
free. Download it, and find documentation,
at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-
download/windows10IoTCore.DISM++ is ver y power ful , with an inter face designed by a s adist. Blue items are locked down in NTLite’s free edition.
maximumpc.com JUN 2019 MAXIMUMPC 47