Windows 11 24H2 automatically redownloading and reinstalling removed components/packages

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koppees

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Curretly, it is totally useless to clean Windows 11 24H2 images with NTLite, which are SSU compatible, beacuse after OS deployment Windows will automatically redownload and reinstall removed components/packages. The only thing that will block silent automatic reinstallation is to keep Windows Update service disabled.

Edit: Even disabling Windows Update service does not work, because Windows will turn it back on.
 
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That's how it works, unfortunately. If you remove Components from an image, a later Monthly Update may decide it needs to patch some of those components and will replace missing files. You have the option of disabling WU, or running a Remove reinstall after patching is complete.

Monthly Updates are cumulative, so once a removed component is restored, it will always be restored for that Window release's lifetime.

The reason you can remove components from an offline image is all the component folders are already extracted. When WU provides a MSU file, there are integrity hashes so there's no opportunity to modify the patch before it's installed. You have to wait until after updates, to re-remove the unwanted features.

It's always been this way. Nobody has figured out a different method to date.
 
I am not talking about monthly updates. As soon as you connect a newly deployed Windows 11 24H2 machine with NTLite modifications to the internet, it starts silently dowloading a recovery image to the Software Distribution folder and reinstalls missing components/packages. Therefore, reversing all changes made with NTLite.
 
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No, I am not talking about Dynamic Updates, what is triggered during Windows installation, either. The situation, what I am describing, is happening after full Windows installation process. Windows 11 24H2 build 26100.3476
 
I might have an idea, what is causing it and how to get rid of this problem. Need to do some more testing.
 
24H2 OOBE Updates are intended to do the same thing as Dynamic Updates, but it's remotely triggered from MS. If you had Dynamic Updates, your image would have silently updated before reaching OOBE, and this screen would never appear.

MS realizes most install images outside of the enterprise don't use DU, so this is a secondary pass at enforcing updates.
 
The situation has nothing to do with OOBE and/or Dynamic Updates. BTW, I noticed that almost exact same thing happens, when enabling Windows capabilites through a GUI. Instead of dowloading and installing a certain capability from repository, Windows downlads an entire recovery image and installs a whole bunch of stuff from it, instead of downloading and installing only ONE capability. Therefore, reversing component modifications made with NTLite again. Thats's why enabling a capability takes so much time. Everyone can test it out for themselves.1.jpg

Just click on a feature and see what happens!

Question is, is it done delibarately by Microsoft to screw over all Windows modders?
 
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After doing some more testing, I can confirm that adding one random Windows optional feature will basically result a whole OS reinstall, while restoring almost all removed components with NTLite.

I am just speechless! How on earth I am the only person who has noticed this? Never seen anyone talking about it on any Windows related forum boards.
 
The only way this makes sense if you broke Windows enough to trigger a DISM repair install.

It's possible to run DISM /RestoreHealth using WU as your repair source (basically downloading a complete copy of WinSxS to your PC). Since WU is taking on MS's source image, DISM restores that version to your PC.
 
Tried the same thing while installing Windows from unedited W11 24H2 base image. And what do you know, everything works correctly. This only means that, what is broken, is actually NTLite's W11 24H2 package handling.

At least, I know now, how to test Windows image integrity.
 
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I finally figuered out, what the hell is going on. That "Clean Update Backup (Custom)" clickable option in NTLite's updates panel removes newer update packages instead of older ones. After installing Windows, it detects inconsistency between OS build number and package versions and tires to automatically reinstall Windows over and over again, but failing. That's why installation from base image worked fine, because there are no duplicate packages on it. So yeah, it's NTLite what is broken.
 
Honestly, I don't care much any more. After practicing for a couple of months, I can do a better job using DISM tool and registry hacking manually already. Yeah, it takes much more time without GUI, but the results are also better.
 
The removal of Hyper-V Feature in Windows Pro and it's virtual editions is also totally bugged. It destroys HyperV-Guest-Kernelint-Gated, Microsoft NT Kernel Integration Virtual Device and Cointainer Server subpackages. Makes packages unreadable and unremovable for Windows.
 
One last post to the topic. Updated packages must be always hardlinked to the base package (26100.1 or 26100.1742). That NTLite's "Clean Update Backup (Custom) option is removing these hardlinks, therefore damaging the entire Windows image.
 
Another bug I found, Onedrive is not getting removed, only uninstalled. Onedrivesetup.exe still happily resides in WinSxS and another hardlinked copy in System32 folder.
 
koppees said:
Another bug I found, Onedrive is not getting removed, only uninstalled. Onedrivesetup.exe still happily resides in WinSxS and another hardlinked copy in System32 folder.
Click to expand...
I don't know how you do it, but I have no trace of Onedrivesetup.exe or anything else when OneDrive is deleted (System32, etc...)
 
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