What do you use for customising your Windows10 install?

[Sonic007]

We are a small school so not really big enough to need a deployment server.

 

I'd like to create a customized Windows 10 installer that removes all the rubbish extras such as Candy Crush, Get Office, and any other apps we don't want.

If it can also install our other pieces of software that would be great.

 

Ideally something we can just boot from a USB stick and install.

 

 

Can anyone recommend anything that works well?

 

 

Many thanks.

[Griff]

You could look at something like Acronis True Image on a USB then you could build an image exactly how you want it capture it onto a external drive. Then when you come to deploy boot from USB, plug in external drive and deploy the image. This is how I did things before I got a MDT server setup at this school.

[Davit2005]

We are a small school so not really big enough to need a deployment server.

 

I'd like to create a customized Windows 10 installer that removes all the rubbish extras such as Candy Crush, Get Office, and any other apps we don't want.

If it can also install our other pieces of software that would be great.

 

Ideally something we can just boot from a USB stick and install.

 

 

Can anyone recommend anything that works well?

 

 

Many thanks.

 

There are a few youtube videos for removing the bloatware. I've not tried them my self, there is one from CraftComputing

 

Thankfully I don't have the responsibility of building images anymore although I have a MDT server setup in a lab at home which is handy for quick Server/desktop builds for lab work.

[Driftingforlife]

I use NTlite to customize all our ISOs for SCCM/manual installs.

 

For manually capturing/coping a syspreped image I use LFsoft active boot disc. This is only for our quarantine network, we use SCCM for everything else.

Edited April 13, 2021 by Driftingforlife

[dhicks]

Ideally something we can just boot from a USB stick and install.

 

I think you can just use the standard Windows install image, written to USB stick, with an unattend.xml file in place to automate the install process, including domain join.

[Asgard]

I use something similar to this to mount the wim, remove a load of stuff and then pack it back up.

 

It then gets thrown into SCCm but you could use it as you intend ;

 

https://gal.vin/posts/removing-uwp-apps-mdt/#remove-specified-provisioned-uwp-apps-from-an-offline-windows-10-wim-image

[stevewill6]

I use the OSDeploy - OSDBuilder. This creates a custom wim file that's then added to mdt for deployment. Every install is a fresh install.

 

All the bloat that's not required is removed and updates are applied when the wim is created.

 

Its a powershell module thats simple to use.

[computer_expert]

I use OSDBuilder with MDT with WDS in larger environments. Very powerful. If you want a GUI, the have a look at WIMWitch.

 

I also use MDT with Offline media in smaller environments (It can be used with USB flash drives too, see the bootable USB section) as you get all the benefits of task sequences as well

Edited April 15, 2021 by computer_expert

[Sonic007]

Cheers. Some good options to look at here.

Have a good weekend all.