Where can I download Win Toolkit? I downloaded one before and it worked but the v2 test build doesn't work and most options are grayed out, and I never signed up to their forum to download.
I guess if your crazy enough to remove key components then your right otherwise I don't see why they would be on here asking anything. Read and learn.
The WinReducer interface is ugly and has the appearance of an amateur program but has all the important functions free. However an annoying window opens in every new step. Currently only worth using in Windows 10. The versions for Win7 and 8.1 do not receive more updates. What I do not like is that it does not show the components present in the image as NTLite but it shows the same pattern always with all possible components of the latest builds. The best one currently is to pay for NTLite who can.
There are a handful of alternatives available, the reason you do not see them "around the web" is simple: 95% of people on forums want as little to do on their ends as possible. In other words, they want to be able to just press 'Y' for Yes or 'N' for No, or tick a box and hit 'Continue'. Unless the reason is very specific, advanced coders are not going to take their already fantastically working code and add 3x additional code on top of it (to process GUI/end-user interactions) just because a community wants to be able to only use a mouse to work it. This is also why 99.9% of "programs" you find are batch files, and also why 99% of them are absolute junk.
I wouldn't pay for ntlite, it's way to expensive. If you really want to slim down windows, you need to do it yourself or use freely available tools. stay away from paid for stuff.
I agree that NTLite is expensive and you only get updates for 1 year then need to renew the license but during the black friday and Christmas the price drops considerably. Not everyone has their full time available and enough knowledge to devote themselves to the Microsoft cat and mouse game removing things and then discovering that it breaks some functionality so having to keep some files to keep the system running normally because of the way dumb to make software from Microsoft.
the license system or "obvious copy protection" that ntlite uses sucks, you are supposed to be able to backup your license but when i briefly owned the app i couldn't get it working as when i reinstalled windows i would try restoring the license but the stupid app would ask to re-activate and you get a limited number of activations before you have to get the author to re-activate it for you. To me that is annoying and pointless if you want to use it offline at times. several times when I did removals using ntlite, following the little bits of text that either say don't remove this or this needed for another component so don't remove, removing components that were not critical, i ended up with a broken iso as windows setup would fail before i even chose the windows edition to install so i got a refund and decided to do it myself. i got similar results with winreducer (hate the ugly user interface) so i stopped using both apps.
IMHO that looks like a lot of nice, but unnecessary bloat since cmd is more than enough for presenting information. It's all about clickable interactions, so.. buttons are what matters. My 15 lines snippet still trumps that in size, speed, usability, portability and style