Create customised Windows installations with nLite

I heard about nLite whilst I was listening the episode 41 of the This Week in Tech podcast. I haven’t used it yet, but it sounds like a great freeware tool for customising a Windows installations right up to creating a bootable ISO image, including slipstreaming service packs, hotfixes and drivers – it sure beats Microsoft’s Setup Manager.

nLite has a dependency on the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 but also has a selection of popular packages ready for integration into the Windows source as add-ons (Firefox 1.5, Adobe Reader, AVG AntiVirus, etc.). If I hadn’t already put a lot of effort into an unattended XP build and didn’t already use WSUS for windows updates I’d be seriously tempted to give it a go.

Comments

2 responses to “Create customised Windows installations with nLite”

  1. Brent Roos avatar

    I’ve used nlite for a while now, and I find it the best way for creating a custom unattended install. It’s a very nice and powerful tool.

    Too bad we didn’t have this tool when I was in college doing labs with unattended W2K installs.

  2. Mark avatar

    A few months after I wrote this post, I did use nlite to create a slipstreamed Windows XP2 CD. It’s definitely a great tool.

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