There's a slight problem that is probably due to the order of which I do things.
The cumulative has to be integrated last for me because otherwise, if I do a fresh install and something else is integrated after the cumulative update, it will redownload and reinstall the cumulative update, despite it already being integrated. For this reason, I do 2 passes with NTLite:
For the first pass, I integrate all the other updates, features on demand (I have one, and if this is installed after the cumulative update, it also causes the latest cumulative update to be redownloaded and reinstalled), settings, etc - all except for the cumulative update and removal of components).
For the second pass, I basically reload the same settings, but with removals and also the latest cumulative update
When I tried to disable the "News and interests" feature today using this method (the setting was made from the first pass), it didn't seem to take effect, probably because the setting was applied from the first pass, prior to the cumulative update.
I took a closer look within NTLite, loading up an image that has already gone through my first pass. If I load a preset which definitely has "News and interests" already disabled (like the same one I used for the first pass), the setting for News and interests is set to default, rather than disable.
Are you able to make it so that it explicitly takes that setting directly from the preset and force it to configure it again? I noticed that the Meet Now widget that I disabled in the first pass was still set to disable when I loaded up the same preset (from my first pass), but the News and interests one was not.
For now, I am going to set my first pass to not disable that setting to get around this.