MSMG ToolKit

Why don't you make your own tool according to your knowledge? You seem to know a lot about Windows. Why should you waste time and words? Just create a tool and publish it to MDL.[/QUOTE]


It was meant to be a bug report/enhancement request, I merely added some additional knowledge to it, which may be hard to come by, and useful to some.

Creating a tool that does identical things would hardly make any difference, having some adjustments made to this would achieve more.
The tool evolved with the help of the community, I was trying to contribute myself.
Every enhancement will be beneficial to you as well, even if you don't know what is going on behind the scenes.
Besides, I don't see the need by anyone for another/different tool.

The experience I have is sufficient to find my way around issues that I encounter, but usually takes quite the time and effort to get there with no know-how available beforehand, just like in this particular case.

The time and words will not be a waste if changes will be made eventually, otherwise I don't mind it.

 

It was meant to be a bug report/enhancement request, I merely added some additional knowledge to it, which may be hard to come by, and useful to some.

Creating a tool that does identical things would hardly make any difference, having some adjustments made to this would achieve more.
The tool evolved with the help of the community, I was trying to contribute myself.
Every enhancement will be beneficial to you as well, even if you don't know what is going on behind the scenes.
Besides, I don't see the need by anyone for another/different tool.

The experience I have is sufficient to find my way around issues that I encounter, but usually takes quite the time and effort to get there with no know-how available beforehand, just like in this particular case.

The time and words will not be a waste if changes will be made eventually, otherwise I don't mind it.[/QUOTE]

Hi dear friend @tempdrive1

In first place I hope that you and all yours be safe and heathly.

From what I've read from your reports and notes, you already have a tool (Script) "My script is trying to emulate on a live system what the Toolkit did with the offline image." which you use.

Would it be possible for you to really share it not as an alternative, but as a tool that, as you said above, can be used in images already deployed, creating a repo on Github openly so that others can contribute, test, evaluate and suggest implementations ?

Here's the idea,

Anyway, even though I have almost no knowledge, I thank you for your contributions and intention to improve the knowledge of the community, after all, as you yourself said, when one of us does it, everyone wins.

A big hug and good computing.

Best Regards,

@JeepWillys58

 

Hi my dear friend @MSMG

In first place I hope that you and all yours always be safe and heathly.

I try to find the version 13.4, but it's only avaliable 13.3 it's right my dear friend?

Thanks in advanced.

Best Regards,
@JeepWillys58

 

@JeepWillys58 Was asking this myself, until i noticed that you have to download the standalone exe and cmd file and replace it witht the ones from 13.3!
Just look at the filetimes and you will see what i mean.

 

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Hi dear friend @tempdrive1

In first place I hope that you and all yours be safe and heathly.

From what I've read from your reports and notes, you already have a tool (Script) "My script is trying to emulate on a live system what the Toolkit did with the offline image." which you use.

Would it be possible for you to really share it not as an alternative, but as a tool that, as you said above, can be used in images already deployed, creating a repo on Github openly so that others can contribute, test, evaluate and suggest implementations ?

Here's the idea,

Anyway, even though I have almost no knowledge, I thank you for your contributions and intention to improve the knowledge of the community, after all, as you yourself said, when one of us does it, everyone wins.

A big hug and good computing.

Best Regards,

@JeepWillys58[/QUOTE]

Hi @JeepWillys58,

I suppose I could publish it, but perhaps GitHub is not the best place to put it to (in the sense that I am not certain if there would be any implications).
Perhaps I open a new topic here.
While it is pretty much production ready (need to add one more thing for which I haven't decided which route to take yet), I have been only using it on Virtual Machines and stopped working on it some months back when I discovered the issue I reported above.
The updates are being applied successfully and no breakage of the system was detected in the latest revisions.
(Technically speaking I could "patch everything" on my end, but I prefer having the issue resolved at the source of origin - so here - and not to build up countless workarounds that may show up later as well).
The usage of the script (PowerShell) is super simple, but I still need to create a proper documentation so anyone can understand what is going on, because there is quite a lot actually.
One or two weeks should be enough, I suppose, if there is a real interest.

 

I suppose I could publish it, but perhaps GitHub is not the best place to put it to (in the sense that I am not certain if there would be any implications).
Perhaps I open a new topic here.
While it is pretty much production ready (need to add one more thing for which I haven't decided which route to take yet), I have been only using it on Virtual Machines and stopped working on it some months back when I discovered the issue I reported above.
The updates are being applied successfully and no breakage of the system was detected in the latest revisions.
(Technically speaking I could "patch everything" on my end, but I prefer having the issue resolved at the source of origin - so here - and not to build up countless workarounds that may show up later as well).
The usage of the script (PowerShell) is super simple, but I still need to create a proper documentation so anyone can understand what is going on, because there is quite a lot actually.
One or two weeks should be enough, I suppose, if there is a real interest.[/QUOTE]

Don't get me wrong, if i sound rude. I am really interested for having another tool that is similar to MSMG Toolkit, and i would be happy to test it if you publish it.

 

Don't get me wrong, if i sound rude. I am really interested for having another tool that is similar to MSMG Toolkit, and i would be happy to test it if you publish it.[/QUOTE]

No worries.

This tool that I have created is not like MSMG Toolkit, it is more like an addition to it for live systems.
It does not perform component removal, but a component deployment prevention instead - unfortunately in a reactive way, since as soon as an update process is started (via Windows Update, installing the .msu, or .cab with DISM yourself), changes will already be made to system, which will be finalized after reboot.
Services, files and folders, Registry entries, drivers and the responsible packages will be added back to system upon next startup, which is much more that you can notice actually.
The only exception would be the modern apps showing up which are prevented by Registry values, but they may still be lurking around passively.
This tool will undo the changes - I dare to say - in the cleanest way possible.

While I understand that there is alternative way to manage this by doing in-place upgrade, it is also quite a hassle to manage, not to mention the effort required to prepare the installation media again, which I would not call as a user-friendly approach at all - it should be used to fix system issues related to updates.
Though I have never tried it myself, I have doubts on how clean that process is as it may touch various parts of the system, including personal data from what I understand.

There are some key benefits if you look at the big picture:
- updating the system would be much faster (compared to in-place upgrades)
- you do not need to skip any updates and wait to make performing an in-place upgrade worthwhile.
- if you remove properly something later on, it will be prevented from being deployed from future update installations, so you don't need to redeploy the system when you figured out how to remove more parts of the system that you do not wish to have

Spoiler

- it will not be needed to remove Windows Update component: I have a stable script for updating the system (SSU, LCU, 3.5 - 4.x .NET Framework upgrades and updates are supported), it can deploy every update (that is being) released regardless of your edition installed (fyi, that means 2032-01-13 for Win10 21H2), which I am using for years on multiple machines already, and no system update or upgrade is ever performed that is not started by the system maintainer this way.
The ultimate goal is to merge them together and have a single tool for live systems for keeping the system update-to-date for as long updates are released under complete control, and also ensuring that none of the removed or any newly added (a.k.a. new "features") component will ever get installed at the same time.

For this we need a solid, unbreakable base - but unfortunately I was able to break it for the time being.
And while I am able to manage (prevent) all the breaks on my end since I already know about the workarounds, MSMG Toolkit would need to handle it in the first place as it may have a positive impact on other things as well.

Spoiler

Additional hint: if this works out, you want to use the cleanest official image as a base, which is the very first release, since does not have the (bloated) features added later on, and as such integrating updates will not be necessary anymore, and the current latest update can be installed online very fast (e.g. with the other script I was referring to).

 

Hi @JeepWillys58,

I suppose I could publish it, but perhaps GitHub is not the best place to put it to (in the sense that I am not certain if there would be any implications).
Perhaps I open a new topic here.
While it is pretty much production ready (need to add one more thing for which I haven't decided which route to take yet), I have been only using it on Virtual Machines and stopped working on it some months back when I discovered the issue I reported above.
The updates are being applied successfully and no breakage of the system was detected in the latest revisions.
(Technically speaking I could "patch everything" on my end, but I prefer having the issue resolved at the source of origin - so here - and not to build up countless workarounds that may show up later as well).
The usage of the script (PowerShell) is super simple, but I still need to create a proper documentation so anyone can understand what is going on, because there is quite a lot actually.
One or two weeks should be enough, I suppose, if there is a real interest.[/QUOTE]

hello again my dear @tempdrive1

How cool would it be if you came to share this with us, absolutely on my part and I believe that many people are really interested in this, I personally don't have much knowledge in developing codes, but I am available and I propose to test it with absolute certainty.

I look forward to your contact, be it open or by PM.

A big hug and much success in everything you do, I'm sure "He" is always ahead illuminating your paths and your thoughts.

Kind Regards,
@JeepWillys58

 

Hi @MSMG,

Thank you so much for your attention, I understand exactly how much time and effort it takes to go after such issues, so I highly appreciate it along with all your work on this tool.

A small clarification with regards to my script that is intended to mimic your tool's actions on a live system: it does not modify the system's internal updating behavior in any way.
What it exactly does is working with pending.xml, migration.xml (sysprep.xml and others are yet to be looked after), Registry keys, and some files prepared/allocated by the update itself, and in its current state it does not touch things that were there prior calling the update.
Once the changes are undone/removed, the windows update process will try to work with the remaining parts and proceed as if the rest (that my script was touching) never existed.

I have returned to my scripts only recently, and also migrated to a new machine, so I will rebuild the base and do the testing again.
This should be done within the next 2 days, but before I do so, I would like to draw your attention to the following:

I think I noticed some misunderstanding on your end for the tests you have performed, which I believe would be the reason for the errors that you were encountering.
I have played with these Registry entries more than I would like admit - though only on a live system, not on the base image in an offline state while using your tool to answer your question -, and thus managed to build up my confidence to make these posts.
From what I understand based on your reply, you remove the values "i!CBS*" under the keys referenced, but it is crucial that the whole key is removed instead, e.g. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\components\CanonicalData\Deployments\dual_percep..nsixdof.inf_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.19041.1_f4ec94a67cd216ca]
This may solve the trouble that you are facing with DISM and SFC.

To be more specific, you need to focus on these Registry paths:

MixedReality:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\COMPONENTS\CanonicalData\Deployments\dual_percep..nsixdof.inf_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.19041.1_f4ec94a67cd216ca
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\COMPONENTS\DerivedData\Components\amd64_dual_perceptionsimulationsixdof.inf_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.19041.1_none_f4ec94a67cd216ca

Tsprint:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\COMPONENTS\CanonicalData\Deployments\dual_tsprint.inf_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.19041.153_356ebfa943b1edf9
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\COMPONENTS\DerivedData\Components\amd64_dual_tsprint.inf_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.19041.153_none_356ebfa943b1edf9

The highlighted key names are the folders you will find in WinSxS.
Though these components do have more folders and keys, these was the bare minimum to remove in order to solve the terminating error for /ScanHealth.

I did see some SFC fixing attempts, but they are these generic entries:

2023-02-23 18:52:10, Info CSI 0000005b [SR] Verifying 100 components
2023-02-23 18:52:10, Info CSI 0000005c [SR] Beginning Verify and Repair transaction
2023-02-23 18:52:11, Info CSI 0000005d [SR] Verify complete

After calling SFC again, they will not appear anymore.
I suppose this may be the ghost error everyone talks about.

Needless to say, this makes no difference as I have noticed during my latest tests, but I perform SFC check to be certain that no error left on the system nevertheless.

As for ResetBase: I did not disable ResetBase by applying DisableResetbase"=dword:00000000", and I intentionally called DISM /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup with the /Resetbase switch.
I would like to disclose a few things regarding this:
- scenario 1: on a system, where you do a normal windows update, which restores the removed components, ResetBase will not cause any issues
- scenario 2: on a system, where I cleanup MixedReality and tsprint leftovers (by removing the full registry keys and winsxs files) and I perform the partial update (excluding the removed components), I did not notice any issues
- in case both of the above (scenario 1 and scenario 2), /ResetBase and /ScanHealth completes successfully
- scenario 3: on a system that I deploy partial update (excluding the removed components) but do not take manual actions (by removing the above specified full registry keys and winsxs files) to cleanup MixedReality and tsprint leftovers, /ResetBase still completes, but /ScanHealth will break down
- SFC did not fail in any scenarios, but it did mostly the invisible fixes (normally it would list in the CBS.log what it did fix, and for my own earlier failed update attempts it was actually fixing a lot of things)


More technical details with regards to scenario 3, just focusing on MixedReality this time:
c:\Windows\WinSxS\amd64_dual_perceptionsimulationsixdof.inf_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.19041.1_none_f4ec94a67cd216ca has inf file(s) with human readable content by default.
When /ResetBase is used with my custom update deployment, the content of these files will be "restored" to some encrypted (or perhaps corrupted) format, where it is not readable anymore.
It may have to do something with the encryption applied to manifest files (c:\Windows\WinSxS\Manifests), but I am unsure to be honest.
So when /ScanHealth is called, CBS.log will show the follwing error that will terminate the process: STATUS_OBJECT_PATH_NOT_FOUND for '\SystemRoot\WinSxS\Temp\InFlight\201809f9b047d901180100006815a806\3803E232ACAB2476E81BC8A88D5B231A677DA3BC\PerceptionSimulationSixDof.inf'
The file c:\Windows\WinSxS\amd64_dual_perceptionsimulationsixdof.inf_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.19041.1_none_f4ec94a67cd216ca\3803E232ACAB2476E81BC8A88D5B231A677DA3BC\PerceptionSimulationSixDof.inf will be there, however, and I think the reason behind the error is the corrupted file.
This is nothing but a pure guess at this point.
When an update is deployed in a standard way (Windows Update, .msu, .cab of the .msu) the system will restore the parts that were removed by your tool (sorry for repaiting myself, but it this part must be emphasized), hence this corruption will not appear, and this is the reason why people are not facing errors, since the system will "heal" itself.
I have to say, it is a nice way to standardize systems and minimize errors coming from discrepancies, but given that we don't like the system components, we are trying our best to "destroy" this process, and this is why it would be important to do it in the safest, most stable way possible.

Reminder: for you to reproduce my custom update, all you have to do is to remove the .cat and .mum files from the .cab files in the .msu, repackage the .cab file and deploy it with DISM.
Do this for MixedReality, because it is the easiest to achieve and will verified before tsprint anyway.
The error for tspint will only show up once MixedReality is resolved as the "missing files" (which aren't actually missing as stated just above) are terminating errors.

How I perform health checks (I rename the CBS.log and dism.log files after each step so it is very easy to review them):
0. I create the image with your tool, make sure MixedReality is not there, and install it (right after installing DISM /ResetBase and /Scanhealth with not do much, as the image I create was done with /ResetBase already)
1. install the partial update (use the .cab file without MixedReality component .cat and .mum files - you know, the Holographic* stuff) and reboot the machine so the deployment completes
2. wait about 5 minutes or so in order to let the post-update processes finish (you can see the marks for it in CBS.log) and perform SFC /SCANNOW and Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
SFC will fix the ghost errors along with complaining about double owned directories, and I tend to see *_microsoft-windows-mediaplayer-skins_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.19041.1_none_* related errors for /ScanHealth, which I thought for a very long time were the reason behind the final failure. This error is silent and does not terminate /ScanHealth
3. Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase
This will complete without trouble. There are pretty much errors all the time regardless what you are doing, thanks to the advanced engineering performed on our favorite vendor's side, but they will be irrelevant if you look after them in CBS.log or dism.log
4. wait about 5 minutes or so in order to let the post-update processes finish (you can see the marks for it in CBS.log) and perform SFC /SCANNOW and Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
SFC will again do the ghost errors along with complaining about double owned directories, but /ScanHealth will terminate with STATUS_OBJECT_PATH_NOT_FOUND #159450# from Windows::Rtl::SystemImplementation: DirectFileSystemProvider::SysCreateFile(flags = 0, handle = {provider=NULL, handle=0, name= ("null")}, da = (FILE_GENERIC_READ|FILE_WRITE_ATTRIBUTES|FILE_WRITE_EA|FILE_APPEND_DATA|FILE_WRITE_DATA), oa = @0x28f4b7b848->OBJECT_ATTRIBUTES {s:48; rd:NULL; on:[137]'\SystemRoot\WinSxS\Temp\InFlight\201809f9b047d901180100006815a806\3803E232ACAB2476E81BC8A88D5B231A677DA3BC\PerceptionSimulationSixDof.inf'; a OBJ_CASE_INSENS[gle=0xd000003a]
On the console it will display DISM Error 3.
Do note that /ScanHealth does restore files in the \WinSxS\Temp\InFlight folder, and whenever it gets terminated, it will not remove them and the space consumed will increate notably.
You can call /ScanHealth as many times as you want, the previous folders have no impact on it as they seem to be randomly (maybe seeded) regenerated.

Again, I would like to point out that even though I remove almost everything with your tool (I only keep Notepad, AppResolverUX, pretty much), once the tsprint and MixedReality issues are resolved, the errors are gone and no other component needs any of these workarounds, therefore I trust myself that what I am doing is not entirely wrong.
Also, do note that for the above steps you would not need to involve my script at all - you did a pretty much preventive approch by not letting windows update find anything to deploy for MixedReality.
It could be that this is still a flawled approach.
Technially speaking you must trigger something that the system recognizes as changes to it base state, and this would be one of them.
Calling /Resetbase on an system that has a resetbase performed already will not do anything, it finishes almost immediately.
The goal is still fixed nonetheless: remove components with your tool, and make sure they won't come back, while updating everything that was left there.

It is important to note that my last attempts were months ago, so I may not recall all details exactly even with my notes taken.
You can see from the log entries from above that they were lastly performed in February.
I can do any kind and amout of testing in a relatively short time, but only after this weekend.

Thank you for the clarification with regards to the Internet Explorer parts.
Given that the eventually old GPUs will be phased out, and security related aspects as well, could you perhaps include a separate option in the tool to remove everything that is not covered by the other option(s), so ie9props.propdesc, iernonce.dll, iertutil.dll, and anything else that was not covered but you are aware of?
I am certain that others would be interested in this as well, and it would greatly benefit my update script, too, along with reduced security risk on a live system (fewer executables and .dlls = less exploitable system) that it would bring.
I will perform tests for Windows Search part I am going to test what kind of impact it has on when I remove the file ie9props.propdesc, because I did remove it myself for a couple tests, but don't recall any notable side effects from it.
Feel free to be more specific what I should be looking for.

I kindly ask you to perform another test which resembles my steps provided in this response as identical as possible, and do let me know if there are mistakes made on my end.
If you don't mind, I will wait with additional testing until you confirm that it still does not work or have other concerns and need me to perform specific tests.
Either way, I am waiting for your next feedback.

 

Hi @MSMG,

I have a seperate bug report for Remove System Apps Menu.

Whenever I apply modifications entering the numbers there, Narrator Quick Start - QuickStart Guide for Narrator | Depends on: SpeechRecognition will be restored to "+" after it was displayed as "-".
Each time I set it to "-", it will be restored to "+" when I modify other entries.

This is the only place and option I have seen this behavior for, and it does not matter what base image I am using.
The Toolkit's version is 13.4, but I vaguely remember seeing this earlier already.
Given that it is in the latest version, I must assume it was not reported earlier.

Note: I have disabled everything in the other Remove menus, so I think it is not based on another entry which I should have turned off for this to work as intended.

 

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@MSMG

There seems to be also a bug with Remove Multimedia Components Menu.
Disable Speech Recognition | Needed for: Cortana, Ease of Access, Narrator & Narrator Quick Start
Go Back, then to Remove System Apps Menu and immediately back to Remove Multimedia Components Menu.
Speech Recognition | Needed for: Cortana, Ease of Access, Narrator & Narrator Quick Start is reactivated again.

If it is relevant, encountered with Windows 10 22H2 19045.2965.

 

Hi @MSMG,

Thank you for the quick fix for the last reported bug (I would have never thought that such a "typo" would be causing this behavior).

I started performing tests as your previous post did raise some valid concerns.
It turns out that while the system is fine handling the adjustments I suggested, the updates, on the other hand, with explicit reference in the .mum files (from what I understand) will fail with a terminating ERROR_SXS_ASSEMBLY_MISSING error.
I was playing around with WinSxS and Registry combinations, and the only difference so far was whether the update was aborted or it was hanging forever, while still showing the same error in CBS.log.

I have some ideas and I wish to say that I already made progress, but it is a bit early to conclude and I also need to make some adjustments pending from earlier and adaptation based on some current results for my script, not to mention that I have learnt my lessons from early conclusions.
I do have some test scenarios in my mind (for both the normal user updating path and mine), but it will take some days to go through them at best.

I just wanted to give you a heads up that unfortunately this issue is a little more complex than I anticipated based on my initial success.
If you are holding back 13.4 because you are looking into this, I suggest you just release it as soon you can, and we make here progress whenever we can, hopefully together.

I wish to share some very personal opinion with regards to Windows 11 (if anyone does not like it, just ignore it, I don't intend to have an ongoing discussion about it, but I feel the need for drawing attention to certain things):

Spoiler: Windows 11 major issues

Over the weekend I had my very first experience with Windows 11 (22H2) based on a request that I was fulfilling - you can call me an absolute beginner in that regards.
The experience was more terrible than I expected, and I am concerned - if I may say that - that people are actually using this "state of the art system".
To keep it short, I am not going to go into deep details how much of a botched system it is, even though it had several releases already, I am sure that what had to be discussed about it was already discussed, I am just late to the party.
I do understand that it comes along with newly released hardware, however, it is just a mess, and there are no excuses for it.

Now, the biggest, and seeming unmanageable issue with Windows 11 is how the updating of system has been reworked and it is impacting the users of this tool without a doubt.
I did perform several component removal with the toolkit (pre-release of 13.4) successfully, however, if I removed anything aside from the options listed under [8] Windows Apps, and I do mean anything, no matter how carefully I have been slimming the images, if components were removed from [1] Internet, [2] Multimedia, [3] Network [4] Privacy, [5] Remoting, [6] System, [7] System Apps, didn't matter which combinations, I was not able to update the system via .msu deployment or even online Windows Update successfully, and the CBS logs were always full with terminating errors for missing components.
I had limited amount of time on hands, but don't think the effort would be paying of if more than half of the options cannot be removed without such an impact.
Essentially it has come to the point where you have to decide if you want a privacy-friendly or a secured system.
At this point I just wonder what is the benefit of having the Toolkit supporting Windows 11.
It seems to be too much effort for nothing (while Windows 10 support still has potential for improvements).
If anyone is willing to sacrifice security for removed parts will suffer from the consequences eventually.
These days are all about system exploitation.
One more thing to add here is that I did disable driver installation from Windows Update, yet it was still doing it.

Furthermore, while performing tests on VirtualBox (last office release and the latest test snapshot), after having Guest Additions installed, no matter if I was working with a modified or an untouched image, the guest system froze after minutes, rendering all my planned tests incomplete.
The only way to work with it was to remove the Guest Additions, losing the communication (shared clipboard and file transfer) between the host and guest system, again restricting the type of performable activities.

My advice would be to acquire cheap Win10 keys - there are legal opportunities for such - and just stick to it for as long as you can - I already made a reference about a possibility to install updates till 2032, in which case it should be worth it, and by then maybe we have some better options.
The only reason - ideally - for using the latest system is to maximize the performance of the latest top-tier hardware on the market for tasks which require vast amount of computation (far beyond gaming), but I fail to see how it would leave a well-prepared Windows 10 in the dust.

 

hi @tempdrive1 About the Issues of Windows 11, I have been editing Windows Image without any issues and also I can update windows safely. The problem you could be facing is that you're removing the components, which is a totally wrong step if you want integrate updates. First, you need to integrate the updates and them remove the components. Also, this advice is given by Tech Yes City on MSMG toolkit video 2-3 years ago. About the guest edition or something you're doing, is a specific case with is not totally something about @MSMG toolkit but yes with Windows and should be address to Feedback Hub app to Microsoft take a look into this.

 

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This has been fixed on Toolkit.cmd from 2023-06-03.