NTLite Seems to Ignore My Preset

M

MurderChicken

Member
I am so confused and frustrated. I spent hours trying to figure out what to remove or adjust, tediously combing through components, apps, services, etc, not to mention reading every single mouse-over description there was. I then hit Apply. After which, I went back to the top and saved it as a Preset. That was yesterday.

Today, I loaded up a vanilla WIM file, then loaded the preset. Most of my settings and choices were completely missing! I looked at the XML file and so many decisions I had made were nowhere to be found. All that time and effort just went out the window. It's beyond frustrating and I could kick a kitten through a fan! Why is NTLIte failing to save my choices to my Preset?
 
Presets record all pending changes waiting to be applied to an image. When you Apply, everything is executed and there's nothing left to record.
Unless you've disabled Backup presets in Settings, NTLite created two auto-saved files every time you hit Apply.

One copy is saved in the Presets folder. One copy is saved in the ISO folder. If you've made an USB image, it's there on the root folder.

Presets are not cumulative records across the lifetime of the image. They only save changes for the current session.
The best time to save a preset is right before Apply, so you can properly name it instead of taking a random Auto-save name.
 
So, the changes don't visibly show up when you load a preset (and even click apply afterward) but they get applied to the image regardless? I hope that's what you mean. Thanks!
 
When you load a preset, the previous session's edits are loaded against the current image. Those edits which logically apply are carried over, anything that doesn't apply is silently discarded.

The easy trick to check is look at your preset's file size. A longer preset indicates it's full of changes, whereas a smaller file means you didn't save many changes in that session. If you're not well organized, don't delete any of the auto-save copies until you're done. They can rescue you if you forgot to save a session under a recognizable preset name.
 
Yeah, I viewed the XML file that I had previously used to remove a bunch of stuff, and it was missing some of those in the removal list, even useless stuff like solitaire and Groove music, which really threw me for a loop. I may have to start from scratch and view the XML just to make sure the removal list has what I'd selected before I ever press the apply button. I'm so tired, plus generally dumb, so I'm probably mixing things up. ️ Thanks for clarifying all of this. Maybe in a future update, the GUI will visibly reflect the changes the preset is loading on the fly (what a great program though), making things less confusing for people like me.

Edit: Now that I've had enough sleep, I think that I finally realized what you were saying about recording changes. Once I hit that apply button, if I save the preset, it's not actually adding the changes I had just made. So I should save the preset BEFORE applying? If so, then I misunderstood the function of saving the presets. I thought that by loading my custom presets, they would apply decisions recorded to it.
 
Last edited:
You've two options for loading Preset(s) via rightclick on Image tab in NTL.
Overwrite and Append where the latter can combine more than one Preset for testing purposes or added edits/ further removals to original Preset/ run of NTL.
Just rename your Preset everytime you feel it nailed your purpose as NTL default name Presets as Auto-XXXXXXXX.
Your Preset(s) will be found in Presetfolder in NTLite install folder.
The Preset.xml will be easy edited with NotePad if required.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top