Is it just me or is NTLite getting slower and slower?

S

Sonicmojo

Member
Currently working on some new Win 10 images for 2024 - and I am finding that making even the most minor of changes to a typical Win 10 Pro wim file is adding gobs of time here.

As a test yesterday - I loaded up the Nov 2023 Win 10 Business ISO and started with Step 1 of Hellbovines Opto Guide and just made the Power tweak (A single reg key update) and hit Apply.

NTLite easily took about 14-16 minutes to grind through this thing where I can clearly remember doing the same builds last November on this same server with the same hardware and a full set of options (removing apps, injecting 80+ registry key, add 5-8 online updates) took less that 10 minutes for each iteration.

The only thing that has changed (outside of standard Windows updates to this Server 2019 environment) is the version of NTLite.

Is there some new optimum hard drives settings or locations or something I am missing - because it feels like I am "wim-ming" through quicksand over here :)

Sonic
 
Hm, it should be faster, not slower.
I welcome you to test the old version and the new one with the same clean ISO and the preset.

That said, make sure there is no Defender or any other antivirus running in the background, that slows it down to what you described.
Open task manager while processing and sort by CPU. If something Antimalware is on top, that's it. Disable Defender, at least temporarily from the UI.
If you removed it, and cumulative update returned that bit, then rerun Tools - Remove Reinstalls to clean that.

Let me know how it goes, if you find something, it will be fixed, there should be no slowdowns.
 
nuhi said:
Hm, it should be faster, not slower.
I welcome you to test the old version and the new one with the same clean ISO and the preset.

That said, make sure there is no Defender or any other antivirus running in the background, that slows it down to what you described.
Open task manager while processing and sort by CPU. If something Antimalware is on top, that's it. Disable Defender, at least temporarily from the UI.
If you removed it, and cumulative update returned that bit, then rerun Tools - Remove Reinstalls to clean that.

Let me know how it goes, if you find something, it will be fixed, there should be no slowdowns.
Click to expand...
Nuhi

Appreciate the update - however - the environment has not changed.

Defender is shut down and there is no AntiMalware scanning going on - yet here is the kind of timings I am getting:

This is an "apply" featuring exactly one change:

2023-12-01_10-42-32.png

And it took 10m and 48s to "Optimize" and then process the wim file

2023-12-01_10-46-11.png

If I move to more a more baseline Win 10 build that I usually do (Updates, removals, maybe 80 reg keys etc and hit "Apply" I saw this yesterday:

2023-12-01_11-29-52.png

I cannot remember any time that a typical session (including an ISO create at the end) taking 20 plus minutes.

Again - this is a Windows Server 2019 environment that I build these images on - no changes are permitted on this box outside of standard monthly Windows updates and Win Defender was shut down long ago.

Maybe I have my drive locations (Edit cache, temp area) set up in a non-optimized way - but this is easily slower than I ever remember.

Last November I was pounding out Win 10 ENT and PRO images in 10-12 mins max.

Appreciate any other configuration tips or setting I should review.

Sonic
 
Multi edition ISO - but I am specifically targeting one edition (Pro in this case) and not propagating changes across any other editions.

This should not impact anything in terms of "optimizing" a single WIM.

It is this "Optimize Image File Structure" step that feels like it has changed (for the worst) and seems to exist in molasses.

Especially that example above where I wrote a single registry change. That process should certainly be less than 10 minutes (if not like 1 minute) to write back a single change.

Using the word "optimize" and then making the user hang out for 20+ minutes - makes no sense whatsoever.
 
You're editing one image, but the WIM is a single archive which holds all the editions. When you merge changes back, wimlib tries to optimize for disk space by checking for file duplication across the different images. Optimization time grows as a function of the image count.
 
garlin said:
You're editing one image, but the WIM is a single archive which holds all the editions. When you merge changes back, wimlib tries to optimize for disk space by checking for file duplication across the different images. Optimization time grows as a function of the image count.
Click to expand...
I will have to challenge this to say that the ISO media has not changed since last year or the year before that. Except there is more content on the disc.

Last November I was editing from the same Windows 10 (multi edition) Business Edition ISOs and never experienced a 20+ minute build session. It was 12-14 minutes tops when I built new images in November 2022. And I am using the same presets as last year as well.

Now - I say this knowing that I only do this once per year and would not be mentioning anything if the build time was in the ballpark. But I can feel something is clearly out of sorts here - but I do not know what it might be. All I have to go on is this weeks stats - which is slow.

Or put another way - is 20+ minutes normal? What are others reporting as a build turnaround time?

I made a significant server change as well for the next test - completely dumped Windows Defender/Security right off the box so it cannot be used as a crutch to claim extra overhead.

And - is there a specific "best practices" for where all the standard NT Lite file locations should be set - maybe thats a factor here - but I am using SSD locations (and no old rust spinners) for my locations right now - it should be snappy - but is not.

S
 
Update - after bypassing any online updates to my Win 10/Win 11 images - I now have a build time of 9min 45secs on average. Much more reasonable.
 
Sonicmojo said:
Nuhi

Appreciate the update - however - the environment has not changed.

Defender is shut down and there is no AntiMalware scanning going on - yet here is the kind of timings I am getting:

This is an "apply" featuring exactly one change:

View attachment 10848

And it took 10m and 48s to "Optimize" and then process the wim file
Click to expand...
I now tested adding one reg file and applying, like on the screenshot, and it took 44 seconds to apply and save the image file.

Can I please see the log, %temp%\ntlite.log of that reg file applied? To see at which stage it takes so long.

It would also be helpful to see if the CPU is throttling, maybe the cooler got loose, or the disk is on its way out.
Try some CPU benchmark to verify the expected speed compared to other results and chkdsk /f for that partition where temp and WIM is stored.
 
nuhi said:
I now tested adding one reg file and applying, like on the screenshot, and it took 44 seconds to apply and save the image file.

Can I please see the log, %temp%\ntlite.log of that reg file applied? To see at which stage it takes so long.

It would also be helpful to see if the CPU is throttling, maybe the cooler got loose, or the disk is on its way out.
Try some CPU benchmark to verify the expected speed compared to other results and chkdsk /f for that partition where temp and WIM is stored.
Click to expand...
Nuhi

Wow - 44 seconds. Would love to know what kinda rig you are running.

CPU here is a 2016-era Haswell Quad-Core Xeon E3-1231v3 running at 3373mhz on Windows Server 2019. Older but still should perform well given the light overhead that NT Lite should need.

To your question - I do not have the log from the "one rg file" test as I did a number of other builds yesterday and the only log file available is the last one from Win 11 Pro build that took 10mins and 32 seconds - end to end.

As far as the disk goes - the image edit cache is using a dual Samsung SSD drive pool (1TB) managed by Covercube Drivepool and the disk speed is as fast as one would expect for this scenario. I also have the Covecube Stablebit Scanner watching this pool and it is reporting normal operations with no error condition reported for months now.

Sonic
 
Sonicmojo said:
Nuhi

Wow - 44 seconds. Would love to know what kinda rig you are running.

CPU here is a 2016-era Haswell Quad-Core Xeon E3-1231v3 running at 3373mhz on Windows Server 2019. Older but still should perform well given the light overhead that NT Lite should need.

To your question - I do not have the log from the "one rg file" test as I did a number of other builds yesterday and the only log file available is the last one from Win 11 Pro build that took 10mins and 32 seconds - end to end.

As far as the disk goes - the image edit cache is using a dual Samsung SSD drive pool (1TB) managed by Covercube Drivepool and the disk speed is as fast as one would expect for this scenario. I also have the Covecube Stablebit Scanner watching this pool and it is reporting normal operations with no error condition reported for months now.

Sonic
Click to expand...
For little giggles I decided to try this too. 2012 cpu and it was done in about a minute as well.
 
Sonicmojo said:
Nuhi

Wow - 44 seconds. Would love to know what kinda rig you are running.

CPU here is a 2016-era Haswell Quad-Core Xeon E3-1231v3 running at 3373mhz on Windows Server 2019. Older but still should perform well given the light overhead that NT Lite should need.
Click to expand...
The process depends mostly on one core, the saving of the image.
So your single-core speed is what matters the most.
This is an Intel 13900k, but as you can see from the other user above, there should be no more than 2min expected on yours either.
On this site our CPUs differ 137% in the single core score.

Please benchmark it with something to see if it works as expected. Tool cannot be messed up, but you could try default settings, delete/rename .\settings.xml before running it.

Sonicmojo said:
To your question - I do not have the log from the "one rg file" test as I did a number of other builds yesterday and the only log file available is the last one from Win 11 Pro build that took 10mins and 32 seconds - end to end.
Click to expand...
Any log would suffice, or rerun it with the reg scenario, 10min is not that much while browsing the net.

Sonicmojo said:
As far as the disk goes - the image edit cache is using a dual Samsung SSD drive pool (1TB) managed by Covercube Drivepool and the disk speed is as fast as one would expect for this scenario. I also have the Covecube Stablebit Scanner watching this pool and it is reporting normal operations with no error condition reported for months now.
Click to expand...
That sounds fishy, can you suspend that disk management/scanning?
Maybe it gets crazy seeing the mounted files suddenly appearing in the mount directory.
 
Now - just so I am clear - are you guys talking it takes like approx 2 minutes to do something like this - end to end?:

2023-12-02_11-26-38.png

The step in here that kills my machine is the Optimize Image File Structure step - this alone can take 6-7 minutes here.

I am going to leave my current install alone and reinstall the app on my own workstation, accept the defaults and see what happens.

Will be back.

S
 
Power tweaks, setting edits or in general reg edits are very quick. Any removals of components, updates and the such will take longer.
 
Sonicmojo said:
Now - just so I am clear - are you guys talking it takes like approx 2 minutes to do something like this - end to end?:

View attachment 10859

The step in here that kills my machine is the Optimize Image File Structure step - this alone can take 6-7 minutes here.

I am going to leave my current install alone and reinstall the app on my own workstation, accept the defaults and see what happens.

Will be back.

S
Click to expand...
post 3 - 1 reg file

what you are highlighting there is components etc etc. which will obviously take more time
 
Ok - just reinstalled NT Lite to my personal computer - Intel Core i5-10600K running at 4700mhz.
C Drive is a Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe (PCIe V3x4)
Stock NT Lite Settings - accepted all defaults.

Just processed this configuration (Win 10 ENT 22H2) on a multi-edition official MS Business ISO:

2023-12-03_15-56-00.png

And this is how long it took:

2023-12-03_16-04-16.png

7:05

Normal? Slow?

Let me know.

Sonic
 
For the removals that's not too bad. Mine when I do my reformat for cleaning and applying my build takes a long long time but I don't care since I just leave it run.

If I apply my reg settings they all go quick so this seems reasonable to me.
 
There isn't really an 'average speed' as different people have different systems, cpu's at different speeds etc. so trying to make it an issue about ' is this slow/fast' is pretty irrelevant. for some users it could take a few minutes, for others it can take a little longer. The only thing that realistically makes it take 'ages' ( 1hr plus ) is if there are things running in the background ( malware scanners, AV, etc etc ) .
 

What's your average time to build an ISO?

Or maybe better, what can I do to speed up NTLite processing? Or "What's the bottleneck?" It takes my computer about 25 minutes to trim a Win7. And that's starting with a trimmed iso, with only one edition, with updates already applied. I know that there are too many variables to get a good...
www.ntlite.com www.ntlite.com
 
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