[Feature Request] Removal of Intel microcodes that was on the images

gjalleri

Member
I completely understand the implication of this feature request. The reason why I want this feature is because I want to use the intel microcode that was on the installed on the bios not the updated one when you freshly installed Windows.. I've tested that every Windows (8.1 / 10 2015 LTSB and 2019 LTSC) that I've installed has different microcode revision and disabled TSX which the feature that I really need.

I need TSX extension for RPCS3 which speeds up the application. Although I know that there were some issues with TSX that's why they disabled it but my reason is that several users on the forums found out that on the same processor that they had which Intel i7 4770, they were able to use the TSX extension without issues at all.
 
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4531006
  • Disable Intel® Transactional Synchronization Extensions (Intel® TSX) capability thru the following registry setting: reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Kernel" /v DisableTsx /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
    Restart the computer for the changes to take effect.
  • Enable Intel® Transactional Synchronization Extensions (Intel® TSX) capability thru the following registry setting: reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Kernel" /v DisableTsx /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
    Restart the computer for the changes to take effect.
 
You can't prevent Windows or any modern OS from updating the run-time microcode in the way you're thinking. When a CPU powers on, it runs the factory burned firmware which in turns runs BIOS/UEFI, which can choose to replace it with a new copy. The booting OS will apply its own run-time copy, and begin kernel execution. If you power off the system, we start over and repeat the steps.

There is no way to disable applying the kernel-loaded microcode. You only have the choice of keeping Window's RTM (fresh ISO), or taking one or more microcode updates. Those updates will grant new registry switches to manage instruction sets.

What NTLite could offer is microcode switches on the Settings page to remember those regedits. Enabling them on a system without the right microcode won't cause any harm. But there's enough wacky reg settings (and counting) to make this a worthy feature.
 
How do i remove these files from the install.wim with ntlite?


To remove/disable EVERY TSX/Spectre/Meltdown/etc. mitigation from Windows you have to do these steps:
- Change the values of these registry settings:
INI:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\kernel]
"DisableTsx"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]
"FeatureSettingsOverrideMask"=dword:00000003
"FeatureSettingsOverride"=dword:00000003

- Delete those two files:
C:\Windows\System32\mcupdate_GenuineIntel.dll
C:\Windows\System32\mcupdate_AuthenticAMD.dll

- Patch your BIOS with the latest non-mitigation microcode:
Latest Haswell microcode with TSX enabled and no mitigations (Spectre/Meltdown/etc.):
0x19 (cpu306C3_plat32_ver00000019_2014-02-26_PRD_97F2CB42)
Latest Haswell microcode with TSX disabled and no mitigations (Spectre/Meltdown/etc.):
0x22 (cpu306C3_plat32_ver00000022_2017-01-27_PRD_AD518A4E)
Download for all available microcodes: Intel CPU Microcode Archives

To patch your BIOS you can use UBU (UEFI BIOS Updater), MMTool 5.00.0007 (proprietary) or UEFITool.
You can find MMTool via Google. The hashes for this version are:
Code:
Algorithm       Hash
---------       ----
MD5             6BE9244F9E5415BF04EFBC441D2CCBD8
SHA1            A37872D43B01DC39A28BB086FFB066C2F5BF735A
SHA256          28049163FD1E3423C42B229A5F6ED877F14E7CAF3B794BF7EFB970B375E6FF41

Only when all of these steps are executed you have your performance back and can use every feature on your system.
 
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