Features regression bug? (Win7)

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pmikep

Active Member
As in my previous post, I'm trying v1.5.0.5840 on Windows 7 SP1 iso.

The last time I seriously used NTLite was in May. At the time, I was experimenting with getting WMC to work. At that time, NTLite's Features Removal was breaking Windows 7. But then I tried a quick September build and I recall posting (In the old forum?) that Features was fixed.

(1.4.0.5537 stable, per my post on September 4. See https://www.ntlite.com/forum/discussion/comment/8198/#Comment_8198 )

But now it seems broken again. (I noticed someone complaining about it for a Win10 build, saying he had to leave fax and internetprintingclient enabled.)

https://www.ntlite.com/community/index.php?threads/another-features-problem-i-am-facing.82/#post-708

So, to begin, I first made a new vanilla base iso with just the Convenience Rollup using 5840.

I took that and used NTLite to do some major surgery on that iso.

I took out the two XPS items in Features Removal. I left in IE8.

When I tried to remove IE8 in the running Windows 7, I got our old message that "An error has occurred. Not all of the features were successfully changed."

Rats.

Preset attached.
 
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It's now 5 hours later .... this is why I try to stay away from NTLite. (Too much fun.)

I tried my Sept 4 preset in v1.5 that worked in v1.4. No joy.

If I had to guess, this problem has something to do with Game Explorer (in Win7) which has moved around from v1.4 to v1.5. I had left Game Explorer in my 1.4 preset, but removed the Games individually in Features. But in v1.5, it appears that Game Explorer is now part of the Features removal.

Well, it's midnight. Gotta stop this and sleep.
 
I let NTLite run overnight working on yet another preset. In addition to Games Explorer being moved to Components, I see that some Tablet PC stuff was split out and moved too. So, for example, if you remove Tablet PC in Components, there's nothing to remove in Features in NTLite. This change might be breaking Features in Windows.

So in this build, I left Tablet PC stuff in. Still no joy.

If it helps, here's my preset from September, for v1.4, where Features removal from Win7 worked. I hadn't removed much from Features in NTLite - just the XPS items.
 
Thanks, let me pick up from now.
So I'll check your first preset, if it removes the most, and find everything that breaks Win7 Features config. Fix as much as possible, or at least add Feature compatibility option which was planned anyway since I found Fax and ASP.NET to be needed (as they are parts of bigger packages and should not have been split for that purpose).
 
5930 build is up, feature config should be better, if it breaks please attach the new preset.
Btw keep the Windows Update compatibility enabled.
Thanks.
 
Mostly good news: I built a mid-aggressive preset with 5930 as a test. (It's not as aggessive as Emma's barebones, but removes more than her Advanced preset.) For this test, I left parts of IE in to see if Features would remove it without issues. (This is Win7 64 H.P. with Rollup.)

The good news is, it worked! Features removed IE!

I don't know if I would call this next "bad" news, because, to be fair, I don't have "Recommended" in Compatibility enabled. I tried sfc /scannow.

It made it through to 100%, and reported that it had fixed some files. Then when I ran it again, it made it through to 100% but said that some files were corrupted but it couldn't fix them.

It might be that, if I had kept all Recommended items, that I wouldn't have this result. (I might try that to see what happens. But, like Emma, I've found that I like unchecking Recommended so that I can remove more items.)

I'm not concerned about sfc /scannow not being perfect, since I have never used sfc /scannow to repair a regular Win7 installation. And it doesn't surprise me that an NTLite'd Windows would "fail" sfc /scannow.

I'm doing one more test for fun - I'm leaving in all the components that affect Features. (Although I have removed Powershell.) That is, all the Features say that they're either Enabled or Disabled, but none of them say "Removed." I'm testing to see if sfc /scannow works when I first boot that build. And then I'll remove Features using Windows' internal Feature removal and run sfc /scannow again to see what happens.

But so far, looking good.
 
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Okay, so I just tested the build I mentioned above, where I left in all the Feature stuff. Feature Removal from within Windows works fine. So that problem has been fixed.

Surprisingly (or again, maybe not, since I'm not keeping all the Recommended Components in), sfc /scannow still kinda fails, even with all the Feature stuff left in. The first run says it fixed things. The second run says it found corrupt files but was unable to repair.

I don't care about that. I think I'm on my way to the perfect Win7 installation now with 5930. (Since I seem to be obsessed with NTLite, I'll do another build with Recommended enabled, to see what happens with sfc in that case.)

BTW, I purposely didn't update 5930 with my year 2018 license. I wanted to experiment to see how a "new feature" would look that I couldn't have access to with my old license.

If there are any new features, I didn't see them. Will a new feature show but give me a message that I must renew my license first to use it? Or are new features hidden?
 
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Okay, so I tried another build with Features and Recommended intact. sfc /scannow still says that it repaired some files and then, when I ran sfc again, it said it found corrupted files that it couldn't repair.

As I said before (twice now), not a big deal to me. I think some of these sfc errors are in the WinSxS, where it's looking for "backup" files of components that NTLite removed. (For example, I presume that if I remove Games from Win7 using NTLite and tried to reinstall Games using Windows Features, Features would fail because Games have been deleted from the wim.)

Anyway, for grins, attached is this Preset and the corresponding CBS.log file (with two runs of sfc in it.)
 

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  • CBS.log
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  • 04.Features.with Recommended.xml
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Oops - spoke too soon. Just tried making a "Gold' NTLite for my Win7 64 Home Premium. I removed just about everything except for what it took to keep IE8 Enabled in the Features section of NTLite.

Now Features barfs in Windows. Rats.
 

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  • 05.Gold.without TV support.with VM support.xml
    35.9 KB
If it helps to troubleshoot, here's a preset where Features works perfectly.
 

Attachments

  • 03.This is with all Features enabled. sfc scannow still barfs a bit..xml
    34.9 KB
Barebones was Very agressive even for experienced bods. It was just enough to get a pc running without needing networking or advanced stuff but it isnt suitable for everyone, hence Lite and Advanced. Lite being a cleanup and Advanced ripping more, but not too much stuff out. Especially with w10 where many want to keep store apps and a ton of other bumpf.
 
Tried my last preset with 5950. Windows Feature Removal still fails when I try to remove IE8 from within Windows.
 

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  • 06 Gold with 5950.xml
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I think that worked on my 03 preset (above). But I was expecting that the new Features compatibility feature (a play on words) would take care of all that, and not let me remove anything that would break Features.
 
pmikep said:
I think that worked on my 03 preset (above). But I was expecting that the new Features compatibility feature (a play on words) would take care of all that, and not let me remove anything that would break Features.
Click to expand...
I compared both and there are other components like games but i don´t think that would make an issue.
 
@pmikep, thanks for the feedback, will try your features and sfc presets and report back these days, this is a priority for the next update.
 
So, does 6025 fix this or should I wait for the next? (I didn't see it listed in the "Fixes" in the change log.) (I know I could try it myself. But easier to ask.)
 
I tried my last preset (where Features barfed when I tried to remove IE8) with 6050. It still barfs and sfc /scannow still soft fails as before. So this brings up a question:

Update: I answered my own question. See next post, below.

Suppose nuhi increased the number of components that are "frozen" (grayed out) when you select "Features" in the Compatibility Menu. And let's say that I load a previous Preset that had had some of those components removed.

Will NTLite "unremove" (that is, enable) those new extra components for Compatability when I run 6050?

Or do I have to reset everything and start over in order to get the full benefit of the Compatibility Menu?
 
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Okay, I answered my own question, above. (Well, maybe I did.) But it brings up a question and a half.

I loaded a Preset that I had made with Recommended disabled.

Then I enabled Recommended.

When I did that, NTLite went through my Preset and "enabled" (checked) various Recommended components.

So - for my half question - I think that means that if nuhi updates a later version of NTLite so that, say, it keeps more components to maintain Features compatibility, then when I load an old Preset with the newer NTLite, the newer NTLite will automagically check more components to maintain the bigger list of components needed to maintain (the updated) Feature compatibility?

Is that true?

To my new question: After I enabled Recommended, and looked around to see what NTLite kept, I disabled Recommended.

To my surprise, that doesn't return my Preset to its previous un-Recommended state. (At least, not according to the GUI.)

For example, here is a screen shot where I had made a Preset with Recommended disabled. Then I enabled Recommended. Then I disabled it.

You can see that now, even tho the child items Fax and Wordpad are unchecked, the parent item, UI Ribbon, is now gray. (Whereas it was unchecked white before.) So the GUI gives the impression that some unseen components are being kept. (That is, something to do with the UI Ribbon.)

Are they? Or is this simply funny behavior in the GUI?

If the former, then NTLite is path dependent, in the sense that taking two different paths (never enable Recommend vs. enable then disable Recommended) doesn't give the same result. (There's a mathematical term for this, but I've forgotten what it is.)

OR - it could be that the UI is consistent and I was the one who went thru and unchecked all gray parent boxes that didn't have the children checked.

enable then disable Recommended.jpg
 
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pmikep said:
So - for my half question - I think that means that if nuhi updates a later version of NTLite so that, say, it keeps more components to maintain Features compatibility, then when I load an old Preset with the newer NTLite, the newer NTLite will automagically check more components to maintain the bigger list of components needed to maintain (the updated) Feature compatibility?

Is that true?

To my new question: After I enabled Recommended, and looked around to see what NTLite kept, I disabled Recommended.

To my surprise, that doesn't return my Preset to its previous un-Recommended state. (At least, not according to the GUI.)

For example, here is a screen shot where I started with Recommended disabled. Then I enabled it. Then I disabled it.

You can see that even tho the child items Fax and Wordpad are unchecked, the parent item, UI Ribbon, is now gray. (Whereas it was unchecked white before.)
Click to expand...

For the first "half question":
There are fixes that includes locking components.

For the Recommended compatibility options:
Seems like you want to have an 'Undo' behavior by checking/unchecking the compatibility options.

When you check compatibility options, it will check and lock all protected components from unchecking, not subyacent components and when you uncheck the compatibility options, that means that it will unlock the components, giving you the ability to remove some or all the protected components.
 
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