Located on the Registry page after loaded image, supported features are:
– Integration of a POW file
– Export a plan to a POW file
– Direct host import on the fly (premium feature), optionally overwrite existing plan/GUID
– Set active plan
– Renaming or changing description
– Deleting plans

All operations are direct to registry without extra tools or operations during install, supports images (offline) or deployments (e.g. C:\Windows).
To configure power plan before import or export, you can use Windows Settings or powercfg working on an active plan on the host.
Once configured, export the active-tagged host plan for future use or import directly to an image.
Preset remembers imported plan and will refresh it on each new apply.
It also supports exporting from an image.

Note that some plans have non-standard names, like ‘High Performance Overlay’, usually are hidden in Windows behind the slider, more info here.

ISO support
On the image page you can drag and drop or use the toolbar to Add an ISO to the list.

To start using the ISO content, either Load the target edition directly, or right-click on the ISO and choose New edit.
Both will prompt to select the Image edit cache directory, which can be hidden for future use.

Image edits
Creating a new image edit, a writeable copy of the reference image, copies ISO or another directory content and establishes a connection back to the reference image.

The reference image, be it another directory or an ISO, is read-only.
All edits are created under the chosen location, and shown on the list in its own group.
Individual edits can be deleted, reverted to the reference state, or in a case of a directory as a reference, replace the reference content.
Delete works even if the image is loaded, it will do the unloading and deletion automatically, same goes for Revert, for a fast workflow.

To maintain connections between ISO and edits, or between directories and edits, use the right-click on an edit Connect/Disconnect menus.

The edit Revert functionality mirrors the reference image, only the differences are copied or deleted, making it fast and efficient in comparison to a manual directory replacement.

Replace reference functionality mirrors an edit back to the reference image directory, again only the differences are copied or deleted.
This can be useful if you’re happy with the changes, and want to store the edit back as the backup read-only reference.

You can see editions on almost any Windows image, those in a form of Home, Pro, Enterprise and similar.
NTLite supports this, basically you can Export each edition to another image (WIM file) from the Source page, make your own editions, rename them.

Here are instructions how to do so:
– choose the base image, you can also update it with latest updates as well, do nothing else to it, not even update cleanup.

– after it’s done, make sure it’s not loaded, icon should be gray

– right-click and Export – WIM it to some file
For example “D:\CustomImages\FirstCustomImage.wim”
Only don’t put it inside any ISO structure just yet, keep this in a folder as your editing ground.
Export as many as you need, from any base image, be it updated or not, different or same, just each differently named, make sure it’s from the ISO that you will return this back into because the boot image (boot.wim) needs to be compatible.

– Add the exported images to the Source page if they were not listed already.
Right-click the desired edition, Edit to change its name to something specific like “Windows Pro for Admins”, so you don’t lose track which is which, especially when they are merged back into a single image.

– when editing each of those exported images/editions, make sure those images are detected as Status: “Isolated” on the Source page.
And if also editing on them the Unattended settings, make sure to enable the option “Copy to Install image” in the toolbar; that way automation settings are per image, not on the root for all the same, like in the default Windows setup.
On how to edit each image and what else can NTLite do, check the Support page.
Keep note about presets as well, rename each autosaved session to the corresponding image for future use.

– when you’re done with configuring each isolated image to your liking, make sure none is loaded.
Then Export them back into any ISO structure, the exact file location is relative in the target extracted ISO file structure .\Sources\Install.wim
When asked Overwrite or Append, choose No (Append).
Review the current status of images on the Source page, should be obvious how the images are stacking up inside the destination one.
You can right-click Delete any unwanted editions on the resulting image as well, especially unedited ones.

– Make sure there are no files: .\autounattend.xml and .\Sources\ei.cfg in the resulting ISO file structure, those can automatically pre-select default image and skip the prompt.

– Create ISO by right-clicking the final image folder and choosing so.
Test the ISO in a virtual machine, potentially start with just two lightly but obviously different images, to see if the method works as expected before investing time into the final product.

– From this point on, you can choose to keep the original isolated images for future editing, or delete them and edit directly on the resulting merged image.
Just note to backup that complex final image from time to time if choosing to continue editing on it directly, as mistakes can happen and you want to have an easy redo at hand.
Also if editing multi-edition image, after bigger file changes, it is recommended to rewrite it.
Right-click on the WIM itself, Convert – Recompress before making the final ISO.

Let us know if you have any questions or suggestions.

Download and Enqueue
It can be used to only get latest updates even before loading any images, or to enqueue updates for download plus integration in the same session.
Enqueue is helpful to handle updates as they were already downloaded, to not wait for downloads to finish before editing the image.

Features
– downloads the latest updates
– verifies downloaded update file hashes
– resumes interrupted downloads
– organizes downloaded updates per Windows version
– labels the updates, helps with pre-selection of the recommended updates
– multi-threaded download and hashing


Update lists are manually curated, usually updated within a few hours from an update’s release.
While lists are downloaded from our server, the actual updates are downloaded only from Microsoft’s servers and the tool internally does not allow any other way.

Supported Windows updates download lists below, client edition, with Server listed where appropriate.

Architectures: amd64 and x86, with arm64 only on Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2:

• Windows 11

25H2 – 11.0.26200
24H2 – 11.0.26100, including Server 2025
23H2 – 10.0.22631
22H2 – 10.0.22621
21H2 – 10.0.22000

• Windows 10
  22H2 – 10.0.19045
       10.0.20349 Server 2022 (22H2)
  21H2 – 10.0.19044 ‘October 2021 Update’
       10.0.20348 Server 2022 (21H2)
  21H1 – 10.0.19043 ‘May 2021 Update’
  2009 – 10.0.19042 20H2 ‘October 2020 Update’, including Server 20H2
  2004 – 10.0.19041 20H1 ‘May 2020 Update’, including Server 2004
  1909 – 10.0.18363 19H2 ‘November 2019 Update’, including Server 1909 (Microsoft Retirement Date 10/05/2022)
  1903 – 10.0.18362 19H1 ‘May 2019 Update’, including Server 1903 (Microsoft Retirement Date 12/08/2020)
  1809 – 10.0.17763 Redstone 5 ‘October 2018 Update’, including LTSC 2019 and Server 2019 (Microsoft Retirement Date 05/11/2021)
  1803 – 10.0.17134 Redstone 4 ‘April 2018 Update’, including Server 1803 (Microsoft Retirement Date 05/11/2021)
  1709 – 10.0.16299 Redstone 3 ‘Fall Creators Update’ (Microsoft Retirement Date 10/13/2020)
  1703 – 10.0.15063 Redstone 2 ‘Creators Update’ (Microsoft Retirement Date 10/08/2019)
  1607 – 10.0.14393 Redstone 1 ‘Anniversary Update’, including LTSB 2016 and Server 2016 (Microsoft Retirement Date 04/09/2019)
  1511 – 10.0.10586 Threshold 2 ‘November Update’ (Microsoft Retirement Date 10/10/2017)
  1507 – 10.0.10240 Threshold 1 RTM, including LTSB 2015 (Microsoft Retirement Date 05/09/2017)
• Windows 8 (8.1), including Windows Server 2012 R2
• Windows 7 (SP1), including Windows Server 2008 R2 (Microsoft Support End Date 01/12/2021, extended support optional)

– Update Cache
Before using the Downloader it is recommended to set the desired download location under the File – Settings – Update Cache directory option.
You can use the subfolders to organize your other updates, even not on the online update list. Update files can be renamed and are still properly detected.
Downloader lists any found updates in those subdirectories depending on the Windows version selected.
Here are some self-explanatory examples of the subdirectory names: 10.0.1803.x64, 10.0.1607.x86, 6.3.U3.x64, 6.1.SP1.x86
Or simply download an update from a list and allow the tool to create the appropriate subfolder.

– Verify
After opening the Downloader, if there are any pre-existing updates in the Update Cache folder, it is recommended to first Verify the updates.
That will trigger hash check which helps also detect incomplete downloads, among any corrupted or replaced ones. Only the updates from the online list are supporting verification.

– Enqueue
Adds the updates to the Updates – Integration Queue, ready for integration to the loaded image.
For Enqueue to be enabled, first load a target on the Source page.
Any non-existing updates will be automatically downloaded before integration once the Apply – Process has started with all of the other pending changes.

– Download
Pre-downloads the selected non-existing updates.

– Trim
To easily delete unlisted updates from the Update Cache, including the obsolete ones, use the File – Settings – Update Cache Trim option.

Wizards are started from the Source page toolbar, in later versions the tab is called “Tools”:

Install Updates wizard

To quickly install MSU and CAB updates on the host machine, simply open the Install updates wizard.
It will load C:\Windows as the target, and open only Updates page on the left, ready for updates insertion.
Use the toolbar to either add a single file or a folder full of updates. You can also drag and drop from the File Explorer.
After adding some updates will look like this:

At this point it is always good to check if Analyze is enabled. It will be enabled if there are any recommendations or warnings about the current update queue.

When ready go to the Apply page and press Process.
That’s it when it comes to full Windows.
Now about updating the lite windows.

Host Refresh wizard

Installing updates can be straighforward using the wizard above, but the process may fail on a lite installation, due to missing update dependencies.
To simplify the process of updating a lite Windows, or to recover the installation in general, this wizard provides a quick and easy way to update each month without losing your applications and settings.
Once started it looks like this:

Select the full Windows 10 image, if you don’t have one, you can get it here.
Extract the ISO to some folder and select it with the Add button, or drop it to the Source page before starting this wizard.

Previous preset is optional, make sure to keep Prompt for adjustments enabled so you can change the image before it is applied to the system.

After pressing OK, it will look like you loaded the image normally, with all the options presented.
However in the background the tool protected needed components for the refresh and is waiting to start setup.exe after you’re done with the changes.
Also Unattended page is disabled as it is not necessary.
This is the time to add the cumulative updates, load other presets or do any changes you would like to do, same information about updates applies as with the previous wizard above.
Of course if you have the preset ready you could have just selected it on the wizard page and disable prompt for adjustment, that way single-click gets you all the way.

If you used prompt, when ready go to the Apply page and press Continue.

That is it, now it will take some time to process the changes and start the refresh.
Note that sometimes Windows refresh takes a while to start, it looks like sitting there doing nothing, but it will continue after some time.

If you get into any errors after the refresh has started, check this page for known issues and solutions.
More info on the documentation.

Let me know if you have suggestions for future wizards.
Thank you for your continued support.

Reporting this after a few days from the release, as one should, not.

To describe some of the main changes:

• The UI navigation was slightly changed, now pages are grouped on the left navigation, making it a bit more clear which action does the page belong to.

• Registry integration page, applying REG files directly into the image hives. There is also an easy way to directly edit registry hives manually, if one wishes to.
• 

• Disk Template partitioning wizard. Makes it a breeze to setup Unattended auto-partitioning. There is also the previous Individual partition for further customization.

• Long path support, bypassing Windows limitation of 260 characters in a file path. Lately this became an issue with Metro apps having Program Files as the root, then together with mount folder it passed the 260 mark.

• Bunch of new components, plus fonts are now individually removable.

Now onto v1.2, already tons to do, will prioritize to your feedback over the years.

Thank you for the support, it makes it a joy to evolve this lil’ helper.

For a simpler automated method, check the v1.2 release post

As the Components page warning states, one of the main limitations of component removal is that while most of updates will install fine, the big cumulative updates will fail to install.
Another important one is that you cannot return removed components or configure features.
The obvious way around that would be to integrate latest updates in the original ISO, editing the image again and reinstalling fresh.

Well, here is the alternative method on Windows 10, if you don’t want to reinstall at this point, but want to return some components, reconfigure features or do a cumulative update.
It sounds like reinstalling, but what it actually does is upgrade/reset your Windows, while migrating files and settings, practically resuming where you were.

The procedure:

• Prepare a Win10 ISO. Now you have two ways of doing this. #1 Load your previous preset to remove components and add new updates. Or #2 Just use full ISO, install that, update via Windows Update, then load your preset Live (C:\Windows) and remove components as before. I recommend the first option, to deploy trimmed and updated
• If you chose to remove components and integrate updates then enable the “Manual Setup” compatibility option in Components. (it protects the needed setup.exe on the ISO), among other needed components for the process. You can remove those later Live together with other Live-only removals.
• Do not use Unattended mode – leave at Default and delete .\autounattend.xml from the ISO
• Start setup from your currently installed Windows (do not boot from the ISO) – run the ISO’s setup.exe from File Explorer
• When asked should you download updates, choose Not right now, unless you are using full ISO and no updates integrated
• Accept the license
• Now the important step; when asked choose to keep files. Do not proceed unless you saw and enabled “Keep personal files and apps“
• Proceed with install, that’s it

Notes:

• Static IP addresses might be reset, go to the adapter properties and set them again after the upgrade
• For solving a more complex network issues after the upgrade, try resetting the stack with a command “netcfg -d”. That will reinstall all network adapters and start fresh.

Rinse and repeat when needed.
Let me know on the forum, email or comments here if you have any feedback.

For starters I need to write some documentation, where I’ll put whatever is asked of me during support and some general instructions for each feature.
Then some more removals to satisfy my core passion, followed with some UI reworking to better group pages and prepare them for new features.
Which features, well I like to keep that a surprise, so that no one is disappointed if a certain feature is dropped or replaced by another, especially important for people purchasing a license in expectation of said feature.
Suffice to say I was listening for the last year, v1.1 todo list is huge and I’ll be doing some prioritization, splitting for v1.2 and so on.

1.1 branch will not be in beta for a year, now that the core is quite modular and stable, it’s all about priorities and quality.

Thank you all for your support and feedback, it has been a fun year.
Now let’s move forward.

Let me give a brief description of two of them, SWM and Windows 7 SP1 slipstream.

Splitting the image (SWM support).
Now you can use the toolbar or right-click on the WIM image (e.g. install.wim) and chose Convert – SWM, to split the image.
This is useful when you need to split a big WIM image file into 4GB chunks because of FAT32 limitation, or if you want to span the image across media.

Something can be said about choosing the correct split part size, if you deviate from the standard 4GB. On Windows 7 image you can use anything from 200MB and above, at least in my tests, while for Windows 8 and newer, the story is a little more complex.
Microsoft does not support installing from an SWM image on newer versions of Windows, but it is known to work anyway. The “trick” is to use a big enough split part size. Depending on the size of the source WIM image, the part size that works should be at least 50%, or even 70% of the total image size.
Split wizard in the tool will warn you about these basics, just mentioning them here for more clarity.

The tool fully supports the SWM images, and lists their information as it would for normal images, where you can see which editions are on it, even before joining or loading.

To create multi-part ISOs, copy the entire image folder after it is done splitting, then create ISO from individual copies, but be sure to separate Sources\Install*.swm files, so that each ISO has only one of them. This will be automated in the next revision of this feature.

Tool also can convert in the other direction, so called Joining. Same principle with the toolbar or right-click and choose Convert – WIM, or simply try to Load the image directly and it will do it for you by replacing the source with the converted version  and then loading it for editing.

As for Windows 7 Service Pack 1 slipstream, or integration, simply load the Windows 7 RTM image, then go to the Updates page, and Add the service pack file there.
If the tool doesn’t see your SP1 file, make sure to keep the original SP1 filename, or at least have KB976932 in the filename. This was done to not confuse you that any exe file can be integrated.
You can also include any newer updates, the tool will sort them appropriately after the service pack.
Then go to the Apply page – [toolbar] Start, and wait until it’s done processing.
It is recommended to then backup the updated image before any further editing, so you don’t have to wait on full integration each time you edit that image. But it’s your choice, you can also do all the modifications in one session.

And last, but not least, a forum user chriswayg, has posted a great guide on how to use NTLite, “TUTORIAL for creating a 700MB Windows 7 or 8 ISO and install in a VM“, be sure to check it out.

There, I hope you like the progress so far, and keep the feedback coming.

A new feature has been integrated into the Target and Apply pages, the ESD conversion.
ESD stands for Electronic Software Download, it is what Microsoft uses lately to compress their online distribution of Windows 8 and 10 ISOs.
Only Windows 8 and newer support ESD image format installation, so the following options are disabled if you select a Windows 7 image.

The way you can use ESD conversion in NTLite is pretty straightforward.
Unpack downloaded ISO content into a folder and add that location to the target list via the Add button on the Target page toolbar.
ESD images are automatically recognized, you can try to Load them at which point you will be offered to first convert the image to the standard WIM (Windows Image Format). That conversion is necessary for mounting and editing an image.
Conversion can be triggered manually by selecting an image container (namely Operating Systems), and choosing Convert from the page toolbar or context menu. Convert option toggles the image format to WIM or ESD accordingly.
You can also directly export a selected image to any of the two image formats, using the context menu Export option.
With Export you can isolate the main image and choose a destination, while Convert takes care of preserving the original ISO structure.
Proper folder structure is necessary for installation to work even if you are copying the folder content to an USB drive.
In other words don’t use Export unless you know exactly what to do with the exported image.

What about the other way around, the WIM to ESD conversion.
ESD images are smaller, so that means we want it. For that reason there is an option to compress WIM images to ESD.
You can compress to ESD from multiple locations as well.
Either the same Convert or Export options, or you can use the convenient Apply page toolbar automation section and check ESD Compression option.
That will automatically compress to ESD after WIM editing has been completed, after which you can also queue up ISO creation using the same toolbar.

If you wonder where to get ISOs legally:

• Get Windows 8.1 ISO
• Get Windows 10 ISO
• Get Windows 7 SP1 ISO (requires a retail product key)

Note that only decrypted ESD format is supported, meaning only that you allow Media Creation Tool to do its work and prepare the ISO, then you can convert it with NTLite to the editable standard WIM format.

Feedback is appreciated, enjoy.

p.s. a forum member cActusjUiCe has posted a short, but informative, guide about using Post-Setup page in NTLite, check it out here.