Solved Has anyone performed a clean installation of Windows 26100.994 with a UUP image?

hsehestedt · Monday at 5:54 PM

Many of you know that I like to create my own up-to-date Windows images by injecting the latest Windows updates into my Windows images.

As an example, with Windows 11 23H2 there are the Latest Cumulative Update, the Safe OS Dynamic Updates, the Setup Dynamic Updates, and the Servicing Stack Updates that need to be injected into a Windows image to fully update that image. So, every month, I inject these updates. As a result, anytime I do a clean install, it already has all the latest updates slipstreamed right into the image.

For Windows 24H2, the only update thus far has been the Latest Cumulative Update / Servicing Stack combined update. If I inject this update into the Windows image, then I cannot perform a clean install of Windows because it complains that a driver needed is missing. My hope is that this is simply because Microsoft is not yet providing every component needed to perform the image updates yet.

That leads me to my question: Has anyone used UUP to create a 26100.994 image and then actually performed a CLEAN INSTALLATION of Windows from that image? If so, then it will be worth my time to download this and compare to my image to figure out what I'm missing. I think that I have only used UUP once ever, so before I go through all that I thought I would see if anyone has already tried this.

steveg · Monday at 6:29 PM

Seems like step 15 in this guide makes it appear you can do it. Unless I'm reading it wrong. UUP Download

hsehestedt · Monday at 6:34 PM

steveg said:
Seems like step 15 in this guide makes it appear you can do it. Unless I'm reading it wrong. UUP Download

Yes, but my question was whether anyone has actually done so and tried a clean install from the media created by UUP for build 26100.994.

steveg · Monday at 8:30 PM

hsehestedt said:
Yes, but my question was whether anyone has actually done so and tried a clean install from the media created by UUP for build 26100.994.

Oh, ok. Sounds like a path not many take, maybe someone has had success.

Scott · Tuesday at 8:36 PM

hsehestedt said:
That leads me to my question: Has anyone used UUP to create a 26100.994 image and then actually performed a CLEAN INSTALLATION of Windows from that image?

Yup, just now.

Wolfzz · Tuesday at 9:43 PM

I did a fresh install just to see what all the fuss was about, unfortunately half the stuff is missing hence the size of the ISO.
Went back to the latest 23H2 and I will wait for the final version to be released in October.

BamaInArk · Tuesday at 9:53 PM

Wolfzz said:
I did a fresh install just to see what all the fuss was about, unfortunately half the stuff is missing hence the size of the ISO.
Went back to the latest 23H2 and I will wait for the final version to be released in October.

What was missing? I ask because I recently installed a later version of 24H2 built from UUPDump. Took me like 3 tries to get it right. By default now they ISO build does not include many programs that used to be default. You have to edit a couple of files prior to building the ISO to have them included. The ConvertConfig.ini file and the CustomAppsList.txt file.

Wolfzz · Tuesday at 10:01 PM

BamaInArk said:
What was missing? I ask because I recently installed a later version of 24H2 built from UUPDump. Took me like 3 tries to get it right. By default now they ISO build does not include many programs that used to be default. You have to edit a couple of files prior to building the ISO to have them included. The ConvertConfig.ini file and the CustomAppsList.txt file.

Sorry I cant remember as there were a lot of just the basic stuff missing that you normally get on a fresh install. A lot you had to download from the Microsoft Store. I didn't keep it installed for long just a quick look.

BamaInArk · Tuesday at 10:06 PM

Wolfzz said:
Sorry I cant remember as there were a lot of just the basic stuff missing that you normally get on a fresh install. A lot you had to download from the Microsoft Store. I didn't keep it installed for long just a quick look.

Yeah now unless you edit things even Microsoft Store doesn't get installed. It's basically Win11 without any metro apps.

BamaInArk · Tuesday at 10:07 PM

OP I just downloaded the .994 version and will build a flash drive installer and give it a try. Will take a bit however.

hsehestedt · Tuesday at 11:06 PM

Scott said:
Yup, just now.

View attachment 100007

Thanks, Scott. That's exactly what I was looking for. Now I need to figure out where my problem is coming from. I'd like to tell myself to wait for final release + 1 month of updates to become available, but there's a good chance I won't be able to leave it alone

hsehestedt · Tuesday at 11:07 PM

BamaInArk said:
OP I just downloaded the .994 version and will build a flash drive installer and give it a try. Will take a bit however.

Thanks!

BamaInArk · Tuesday at 11:51 PM

hsehestedt said:
Thanks!

Install worked fine for me too. I still need to do updates but it installed without any errors.

hsehestedt · Tuesday at 11:59 PM

BamaInArk said:
Install worked fine for me too. I still need to do updates but it installed without any errors.

Excellent. That serves as confirmation then.

Thanks so much to both you and @Scott for testing this. You have definitely saved me some time!

Scott · Wednesday at 12:03 AM

BamaInArk said:
Yeah now unless you edit things even Microsoft Store doesn't get installed. It's basically Win11 without any metro apps.

Not sure what you're talking about. My 24H2 came with the store and all the apps.

BamaInArk · Wednesday at 12:29 AM

Scott said:
Not sure what you're talking about. My 24H2 came with the store and all the apps.

View attachment 100016

You have to pay attention to the CustomAppsList.txt file. The version I had downloaded didn't have the WindowsStore defaulting to install. The .994 one does not have that restriction for the WindowsStore. There were a few versions that were temporarily pulled from being able to download and the reason was improperly building the ISO image. It appears those revisions have been made available again.

The part of the CustomAppsList.txt looks like this:
### Common Apps / Client editions all
# Microsoft.WindowsStore_8wekyb3d8bbwe
# Microsoft.StorePurchaseApp_8wekyb3d8bbwe
# Microsoft.SecHealthUI_8wekyb3d8bbwe
# Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller_8wekyb3d8bbwe
...............
The ones with the # sign in front are ignored so you have to edit the file and remove the #. For some reason the files I downloaded from UUPDump had the # symbol which precluded the Store from being installed. It had been awhile since I used UUPDump to download the build my own ISO so not sure when UUPDump began limiting some of the metro apps from installing. I built the ISO twice and installed twice only to see NO metro apps being installed before I figured out what was going on.

Scott · Wednesday at 12:41 AM

BamaInArk said:
You have to pay attention to the CustomAppsList.txt file.

Thanks for the explanation, I had no clue that was the case. Wonder why MS did that.

Ghot · Wednesday at 12:47 AM

Scott said:
Thanks for the explanation, I had no clue that was the case. Wonder why MS did that.

It was an aberration... an unintended act of kindness by Microsoft.

BamaInArk · Wednesday at 9:23 AM

Scott said:
Thanks for the explanation, I had no clue that was the case. Wonder why MS did that.

And further this is what the leading text of the CustomAppsList.txt has to say.

### This file allows you to customize which Microsoft Store Apps are installed
### during the UUP to ISO conversion process.
###
### For changes done to this file to be applied, the CustomList option in the
### ConvertConfig.ini file needs to be set to 1.
###
### This customization is supported only in builds 22563 and later.

So without actually reading that text file before hand one would never know about this option. I'm not sure if this is a Microsoft thing or something the creators of UUPDump have done. Again by default this txt file is set to ignore loading of most of the added Apps as part of a normal Windows installation process. For instance all the Media Codecs are ignored and not installed.