Issue with Components Gaming template

[LightSystem]

Hi all,

First time posting, recent user. This is more of a report post from my recent experience with NTLite.
I was installing Windows 11 for a gaming PC, and gave NTLite a try.
I saw somewhere else in these forums that there was a couple of options for a minimal windows install for gaming, from what I understand using the Gaming template option in components is the more conservative choice so I used that. To be clear that's the only thing I customised on the installation ISO.

I've used that for a few weeks with no issues. Now, I've encountered a game, specifically "monster hunter stories 2", that would not start with the following error: wmvcore.dll not found.

This is apparently due to "media feature pack" not being installed, which comes as part of Windows Media Player I think, and this game requires some codecs that come with Windows to be present as it uses them for video playback.
None of the googleable solutions worked for me trying to solve this issue, I tried:

• Installing the media feature pack through the optional features in Windows (does not show up in my installation), also trying to install Windows Media Player classic the same way finishes with an error.
• Installing Windows Media Player through the Microsoft Store, it was installed with no issues and seemed to be working but did not solve the missing DLL.
• Using DISM to install the media feature pack, but that ended with "The referenced assembly is not installed on your system" and I could not progress from there.

Ultimately I solved the issue by installing/upgrading/repairing windows through a non-customised ISO, so now I have a regular installation of Windows and can play the game. I would guess that simply enabling the "Windows Media Player" component which gets disabled by the Gaming template could have worked, I didn't test that specifically.

Sorry for the long post but that was my journey, hopefully it might be useful to someone. Finally I would like to ask a couple questions:

• Is it actually possible to solve this issue within an installation of Windows (without using NTLite) through some method I'm not aware of?
• Would it make sense to consider changing the Gaming templates/presets to take into account that some games (at least one I know of) needs these video codecs present?

Thank you, and hoping for some feedback

 

[Hellbovine]

The ideal solution would have been to make another image in NTLite with the Gaming preset, but before you click "Process" check the WMP component so that it doesn't get removed. All presets and templates can be modified as you see fit, for this exact purpose.

I agree with your sentiment though, if WMP is being removed in the Gaming template, it should be updated to not do so. This confusion is probably because of the naming scheme the templates have, they are called, "Privacy/Gaming/Lite/Not recommended" but if they were instead renamed to, "Light/Medium/Heavy/Extreme" or something similar it would be more intuitive for scenarios like these. Even changing the color bands may help, going from white/yellow/orange/red so that the red color signifies "danger" in the Extreme template, while also showing the safety progression of each profile.

This is because the way templates work is that they are cumulative, meaning each template contains all the stuff from the previous templates, plus extras. I think this concept does not get reflected enough in the current naming scheme and thus we run into posts like these where someone used the gaming template, but their games don't work.

 

[francis11]

And before choose a template (ie. Gaming) for removals - check Compatibility in NTL menu for what you want to keep to have a consistent install working as Compatibility can overwrite and save some of the Template removals.