Making the Best Windows ISO 

Rufus recently got updated to patch the Windows ISO which include Secure Boot and TPM bypass, bypass the requirement for a Microsoft account, skip all data collection questions by setting them to false and more

When adding updates with NT Lite always remember to check the resetbase box to clean the winsxs folder.

Seems like a do-it-yourself, legit alternative to LTSC. Very nice. I absolutely LOVE that you end up with such a bloat-free install. Nice!

I've been doing this since 95lite all the way to now. When 95lite and 98lite came out this was awesome. Well worth the money. Thanks for spreading the word.

Goodnight. Be careful doing this. I did the step by step as Chris explains and I ran out of pc. Yes, the system consumes 1.3Gb of ram, and runs smoothly. But... At what cost? The navigation bar below DOES NOT WORK. Neither does the sidebar. It does not come with any software installed, nor do most of the essential services. Basically you can't do ANYTHING. If you want to install something you can't either, since the Microsoft Store service is deactivated and you can't install anything. Not a browser by console the Power Shell. Be very careful.

Can you make an updated guide on msmg toolkit coz in 40$ I can eat for 30 days lol

Question. After making your own custom ISO, does Windows try to reinstall their bloatware with updates? Or can you specify only security updates with ISO? Just want to know if Windows tries to sneak (install) their bloatware back on. And...appreciate any input on custom ISO for a gamer but not strictly gaming, surfing net for news and financial things too. Was definitely looking at removing Windows Store, Cortana, Calender, (killing auto update), ect but possibly keeping IE, and Defender. Don't use IE but sometimes you can't escape it (rarely).

When I was a Windows 10 Desktop Engineer/Lifecycle Administrator, NTLite was my secret sauce for creating clean and fast Windows images to load into SCCM.

Nice video, will you be making your own preset for NTLite in the future?

Will you go through all the changes made in the xml file in a future video? Maybe explain all the Windows components and software stuff entirely?

Windows 10 also has winget

Thanks Chris, another awesome guide for making a Lite Win10 ISO. This is a really great accompaniment to your VM guide.

NT Lite is the absolute best. I use this software all the time to integrate updates and I rarely ever run into any sort of issues.

msmg toolkit is like command prompt ive used ntlite free edition for my windows iso's and it was very good

@ChrisTitusTech Sorry Chris. This is one of your great videos I cannot follow. I'm 70 and can only hear out of 1 ear and my vision is poor at best. In this video you are talking to fast for this old man to follow. Also I heard that you could use the NTLite for free to do what you are doing. I don't know if that is true. I downloaded it and ran it in a seperate folder just to see what it looked like after extracting it with 7-Zip and it looks nothing like your files. Thanks Man.

LOVED NT Lite in the Win XP days, it's how I used to make my SP2 discs. But I thought it was useless with Win7 maybe I didn't give it a chance- glad to see it still around!

I use your debloat script, I have familiarity with this tool, PS and CMD are my friends, and your debloat utility works for me.

I think it’s very helpful that you have an accompanying guide, as it was not immediately obvious to me from the video a few things, for example the main difference between this and some other custom ISO making videos. I see now that this is a sort of half way house solution, since the tool has some pre-set options to do some of the stuff for you if you pick the typical final ISO type you are looking for.

Someone who doesnot blow up your mind with an awful music and a loud voice. Thanks for your great work.

Thanks bro finally someone who isn't posting malware or fake stuff, you deserve my subscribe!

is better WinToolkit than MSMG Toolkit? your recent video is about MSMG Toolkit (2020), but in this video you recommend the WinToolkit(2019)

Hi Chris ! I love your videos! Can you make one where you explain how to get paid programs into the image and have them install automatically with Windows. During the installation, a window should appear with the programs we want to install and not play around doing this later. We mark and they are installed with Windows. For example, Wondershare Filmora X, Revo Uninstaller Pro, Visual Studio, Internet Download Manager, etc. I'm making an image with AOMEI Backupper, but I want to know how it goes with NTLite ISO. Thanks !

3:01 "But, it's Microsoft. it's not meant to." This statement pretty much sums up the era we are in with Big Tech, going from Windows XP days to what they now call Windows 10/11.

I started using Ntlite back in time with Windows 7 and XP, and it was a really helpful tool to get ultralight versions of both OS. Nowadays, the Ntlite team has improved a lot of cool things that make it easy to set up Win 10 or 11, as you mentioned, so it is worth paying $40 for the home version. I have a question regarding your settings for Gaming OS. Can I use those settings on a home PC on a windows Home (such as browsing, using Microsoft office and that kind of stuff), or Does it need to be a Windows Pro?. This is because I am trying to help someone from my home country, so if that works, it will be easier to deploy. Thanks.

why you kept the best for the last i think 40$ dollar is nothing much for just how much pain in the ass it saved me from. in recent version of msmg you can't integrate cumulative updates in this ntlite it download them himself

Wow.. just learnt how to easily download the windows iso 👍

I followed the same process but the iso file is still larger than 5 gigs. Is it because I used the free version?

Wow, The name of the forum (MSFN?) escapes me but Nuhi started making software way back that would strip down Windows. Pretty sure Nuhi started NT Lite as well and he might be the one doing it today. Odd enough, I really enjoyed trying each update and getting back to him on any issues I had and it was amazing how quick he would come back with a fix. Back then it was free and had other names for different versions of Windows. This guy was very talented and should be paid for his work. God knows he did the free work for a long time.

Chris how do I prevent your debloat tool from screwing with Edge?

(NT Lite) only desactivate no delete & the iso heavy ! the best is (WinReducer EX) desactivate + delete + make iso lite

69F Nice

I'm receiving a black screen after installing the windows. It's just stuck on the black screen. Trying to do the windows 11 version, did all the steps you did.

i like it but i want windows defender opposed to your personal opinion, its the best antivirus ever and its light and free. I am on ltsc.

I get an error when I import your preset for Win 11. Any suggestion?

3:10 HA! Imagine letting microsoft fingerprint you.

Have you ever use uupdump? thats my favorite piece of file to download any windows 10 or 11 versions weather it be retail, beta or developer iso. i like to use that in conjunction with ventoy

very interresting Chris. sure would like to be able to make my win10 iso as light as that. thank you for sharing your knowledge. impressive about how much you know of all this stuff :)

no point is there wont it just update and bring it all back

This is not a beginner friendly videos, no real explinations for setting just personal recommendations.

I did it for free, you dont need to buy anything lads, good luck :P

I’m still getting on well for now using Chris’s tool utility stuff on stock instillations, but I will move on to making my own custom ISO and this video will certainly get on my to view list then. The trick for getting at the ISO simply was useful, (as I recall it used to be more straight forward). I think it is generally a good idea to always get a copy of a standard MS windows ISO when you can. It seems that as MS develop something further, they make it less easy for us to modify. I think Chris mentioned that by his utility tool tweaks it was easier with the earlier versions. I do not know if the same is true for when customising the ISO, but I think when I investigate making my own I would like to experiment with different stock versions. In Germany it is more straight forward as some reputable computer magazines offer a simple stock MS ISO download. In fact, until recently, one was offering the complete series of all the earlier windows 10 operating system versions, so I got a full set of ISOs. I don’t unfortunately have a set of all the English versions, so if anyone passing knows of a safe source to get at those I would be grateful, thanks. Alan

from a laymen point of view this is really complicated, too much work, I do it the old fashion way

If you cannot afford the $40/£41 then use the NTLite free version: Drivers: use Double Driver to export your Host system drivers into a structured folder and import in NTLite.

You say this setup is for gaming. What about online gaming or game updates with no windows defender? Still safe?

Love your work Chris tons and tons of very informative information on Windows and Linux operating systems. Also love the Mandalorian picture behind you. May I ask where you got it. Cheers Stuart Law from Australia

Can you do an up to date video of making a copy (settings) that got you the 78 processes at 11:20?

I am a ntlite user and i can say that it was the best purchase I have ever made :)

cool, but the gamer os presets kill my bluetooth and wifi drivers on win10 as well as on win11.

I've been using this software since the Windows XP days, it's worth every penny. The only problem I ever have - I can *_never_* get my old HP LaserJet 1022 working after installing with a custom ISO 😮‍💨

Just pirate the software lmao

Great video! Got it 99% working. Only problem I found is that when I change the language that should be installed to Norwegian, the keyboard layout is still English.. Tested with SHIFT+F10 in the setup stage, and there the keyboard layout is correct(Norwegian). But when the actual OS is installed its English. Now I'm stuck with the English keyboard since all the components for language pack download is stripped away. Anyone have a fix for this?

There is the beautiful windows 10 script to debloat windows and it worked like a charm as well and removed every bloat and i really liked it...

2:38 you dont need to do what Chris does, you just scroll down and download iso. Awesome program, the preset you are hosting is not really usefull for gaming, atleast not on windows 11, Discord is not running proberly, todays gamers want Discord to yell at they team mates, also winget cannot be installed as windows store is removed.

Seems cool, but I can never justify spending 40$ for this tho

Checking for updates took less than 10 minutes?! I call fake!

Any chance we can get a more in-depth video about this, and maybe some additional presets for a minimal and debloated install that is still good for every day use like web browsing and email? This video goes kinda fast and only covers the GamerOS preset. Edit: Also, where can we get that file with all of the drivers at about 5:30 in the video?

if i wanted to download microsoft store apps/xbox games what would i need to enable in each section?

"Not downloading executables from the internet": I laughed inside when you said this because that's most of the Windows ecosystem Lol Not everything is on Steam, and even when you do play games on Steam and want mods, you'd still have to access to web...

That's interesting. I spent a week making a company image last year and writing unattended scripts by hand. I remembered the days of win xp when we could get a working image of about 200mb hacking at it. Good old days.

I'm going to keep on watching this video a lot until I'm confident I can do it. I love those low process in the task manager. I really want my gaming pc like that. All about buttery smooth 😎

idk wth happend to the Preset, but it literally downloads so much bloatware and unneccessary stuff, dont download it guys, do it yourself

Well done great video By the way, I'm a little ashamed to ask, can I please have a link to download the Windows you made? I want to install it on my computer

This is awesome! How are they not getting in legal trouble for charging money for the tool though?

That's how i downloaded and modified my windows 1 year ago. I hope they don't fix this

That tip about getting the ISO you need was nice to see. Though I wish we could download only the Pro version. I gave up modding years ago because nothing ever seemed to work for me. Started again last month. I finally bought NTLite after failing with the other free tool out there. Wow, what a difference! The config file chose the wrong timezone though. CANCELLED! 🤣

Hi Chris your videos always help me fix my potato laptop lol

This is pretty cool. Would it be possible to run a .bat file for installing apps with chocolatey post windows install? Also, is it possible to create an image from an existing version of windows with all the settings in other apps?

It's weird how on Windows 10 they still require on Windows the "installation Media" if it detects you are on Windows... With Windows 11 you can literally just download the ISO (Least it showed that for me) when I went to the website, while on Windows 11... Microsoft is always so backwards on so many things...

I don't doubt that it works perfect for games but to work day to day in a work environment the cutout is too extreme it can cause problems

Thank you for this video! Is NTLite still $40.00? I downloaded it, but found no price, just a free version with some limitations. How would an image like this affect the install of something like Minecraft Java Edition, which I think requires the use of Windows Store?

is there a need to run your tool after this to do its "desktop" tweaks ? also, would there be a variant of the preset with windows defender enabled ?

What are your opinions of ghostspectre?

💯excellent video chris👍. I just did all the steps as explained in the video. but it is giving me the following error. ⚠⚠Windows cannot install required files. Error code: 0x80070570⚠. I have used ventoy and rufus 3.20. What do you think could be causing this error?❓❓❓

when installing my custom iso I get an error windows /panther/unnattend.xml in the cycle specialize ,any solution ? I've been trying things for 2 days

Man I love everything that you are doing. I used to do this as well before I loved to linux. I used to use black vipers services batch file too. Shut off anything that is not needed. I wonder if you have done this? Disable all those services running which no one uses except the hackers or microsoft to check if your license is valid every other clock cycle.

For anyone that wants to reduce windows service count more there is a 2nd way go to regedit and go to this place Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control and delete this ( SvcHostSplitThresholdInKB ) if it's not there its probably already deleted or you are on an older version of windows it was first added in (Win10 1709)

AMIGO HELPS when applying changes in NTLite where it says "save changes in iso" it doesn't start from 100% and returns to 0% the others if they go green

Great video Chris! I might have to give this one a try. I would love to be able to make my own OS. I saw your video on tiny 11 this morning, scrolled down and saw this video and thought I would watch it. Can this software work with Windows 11 also?

How to setup a bare minimal light weight security in this ISO? for the reason that we download and install binaries that may be harmful and this will become a vulnerable setup.

Why is Windows Defender triggered? I mean, why does it need to make local changes to system files in order to build an install image?

Can u guys help me out from where did Chris get those drivers 5:16, and I am getting this error after making the bootable “Display driver error”

Hey Chris quick question where did you get the folder with all the drivers for all the OS's versions I would like to include on my image thank you! NVM I actually found it thanks!

$40 is outrageous. SW devs are the worst of the worst.

Did I get it right: you can include software in this image you would install anyways (e.g. an office)? And also can I put in my active directory to get the computer right into the network?

I wondered how to do the same with Linux. Especially Debian base system

I like your videos, i wanted to learn something about ntlite, i tried free version which also works fine but i have a problem with those settings, i wanted to use microsoft account and that old email n calendar app (yes i like them still) played with settings and was able to use microsoft account but i couldnt add an email account to email n calendar app, kept making new iso to test which takes a lot of time and boring. Probably i am missing a single setting to make it work or something is missing there. Can you add some info to your guide about this when you have time for this settings ?

Really good video, I am curious to know "How to make Best Windows ISO using NT Lite, as a daily driver?"

Really sloppy video man.... You called it best windows then at the end you called it bare minimum and without even net browsing.... Also you skipped so many informations and explanations.... I can understand if you are creating this for a PRO but you know that your audiences are not all PROs!!! and that you are on freaking YT and many will see this as a how to and tutorial...

I love this tool much better than MSMG Toolkit, I created a Windows 11 22H2 Superlite ISO and removed practically everything!

Non-existent file path: LOAD POSTSETUP.PS1 FILE UNDER USER EXECUTION error

2:35 You can simply hit f12 and click tablet button on the top left corner. And hit f5 or refresh the page manually. (It works for Chrome, i don't know how to do it for other browsers but it might be similar.)

Are these custom .iso installs just for convenience or do they allow you make changes that are impossible after a regular install?

Sir' My Name is Raju From NEPAl, Kathmandu. I tride to make windows 11 Pro iso pre activate bypass , to burn in 4.7 GB DVD for my old PC, but i failed. Can you make for me and Send iso. It will be thankful to you.

Hello Chris do you have a discount coupon code perhaps? :)

i would use rufus to install the iso tbh

My ISO came out at 5.48 GB. Did that much change since you posted the video?

Can you provide us this edited iso? because I trust you Chris

do that on a windows 11 iso pleaseee

does disabling cortana and one drive usually brick the OS? I want those disabled off rip. I just cant seem to get it

Thanks for the video. However, maybe slow the clicking down and explain just alittle bit more. For Example, you never explain the Driver CD??? is it from a Windows CD? Is it from the OEM Driver CD? Is it from a mounted ISO? I have no idea, you simply just click and hope we pick up on it I guess!!!