It has been on Removing Package Files for 20 minutes now? It says: '' Component: Screensketch Removing Package Files... '' does it take this long to remove a file?
Use the latest version of Toolkit + the latest Toolkit script uploaded separately in the download link. You need to choose the components first and then start removing the components and yes it will take some time to start the removal process but doesn't take a long time for each components like in previous versions.
If you haven't selected the recovery image for mounting while selecting the source then you can remove it but can't say if it breaks the OS without testing.
@MSMG: There may be an issue with the "disable windows update" tweak in the script. Line 1164 and line 1165: Code: Reg add "HKLM\TK_SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DeliveryOptimization" /v "DODownloadMode" /t REG_DWORD /d "0" /f >nul 2>&1 Reg add "HKLM\TK_SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DeliveryOptimization" /v "DODownloadMode" /t REG_DWORD /d "63" /f >nul 2>&1 The policy setting is being repeated, as you can see. But besides that, the value "63" is not valid. Valid would be 0, 1, 99 and 100 according to MS docs. Leaving this uncorrected will flood the event viewer with delivery optimization warnings. Cheers.
Your tests are very good. I spent some early hours on this endeavor too. Just an observation and complementation: I believe that I understood differently what @MSMG meant by: "Avoid using both removal processes" I think that using both processes to remove components from the same category or both processes to reinforce the removal of the same component, are the purposes of that speech. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Only @MSMG can explain it better. I didn't check item by item on your lists, but from what I saw, you didn't repeat removals of components on both lists, and I think this is very appropriate. Note: the file DISM Template File "RemoveAppsList*.txt" would be equivalent to ToolkitHelper Template File "RemovePkgsList*.txt". So, for DISM I saw that you used a lot of the Template File "FeaturesList*.txt", but I didn't check on the DISM Template File "RemovePkgsList*.txt".
I don't want to interject too much into the proceedings, but firstly I want to thank MSMG. Also, I'm just wondering if anyone has any idea if/how I would go about setting up junctions to relocate folders before install? Basically, I want to move all the stuff that isn't part of the core OS onto another drive, primarily so that I could reinstall the OS without even thinking about it and all my stuff would be untouched (program files, user files etc). Could I mount everything using the Toolkit and make the changes and junctions on the mounted image? Would that then copy over to the actual installation? Or is the only real way to do it after installation?