Ninite.

[EricA.]

Im sure there are a ton of people who have seen this tool before but I did a forum search and it did not appear anywhere. Even if I expose this to 1 new person I think it helps. Often times we get a lot of users who come into the chat and have to do a fresh install and a lot of time I like to reccomend https://ninite.com/. Pretty neat tool that goes through a list of commonly used programs and installs them through one package. I personally use it often as it skips the tool bars and bloatware that can be added when doing a manual install.

[DaveLembke]

Ive used it before, but instead of having to rebuild fresh each time i have to rebuild a system, I build my system back from an image through a drive to drive clone process using Macrium Reflect. If you are not setting off to the side a spare hard drive with a clean build to be able to revert back from a image, then ninite works good. I havent used it much though because I install spare hard drives in my desktop computers to keep as a quick system recovery.

 I got a great deal on 160GB SATA HDD's for $12 each through newegg and most drives contain less than 50GB data. These extra drives are mounted in the case and left disconnected until needed. I build the system on these smaller drives for OS and all necessary software. Then when its built to a point that I am satisfied with it becoming the recovery state for the system for the future, I then clone this 160GB drive to say a 500GB drive. Then when clone is complete resize the C: partition to take up all remaining space to be used for C:. Disconnect power and SATA communication cable from the 160GB drive and run on the 500GB drive. When the 500GB drive is in need of a wipe and make clean state, I just attach both drives and run Macrium Reflect and clone the 160GB stomping on top of the 500GB drives data and resize the C: partition after first getting any important data off of the 500GB drive.

Years ago back during Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP, I use to use Ghost 2003 and burn a DVD-R Ghost Image after the build is complete for the OS and Software and place it into a jewel case and then place that in a ziplock bag and lay it in the bottom of the computer tower making my own system recovery media set for my own builds. So that I never had to go through the boring process of feeding software to a tower and updates.

Both required me to still perform updates to software and OS as for the recovery state was locked in time and anything from that date forward for software that was out of date would need to be updated. I could always also turn on the 160GB drive and run it through updates and then disconnect it so that the next time its used to clone the drive it is that much more up to date requiring lesser updates.

For my large game library of steam games I made a copy of the games on my 4TB external and so I dont have to redownload large games over again. I just tell steam to install the game, and then kill my network connection, and manually copy the game contents to the target directory, then enable the network connection in which it picks up where it left off with install in which it detects that the game is there, it then goes to 100% complete for the game and I am able to run the games. Havent had to do this in about 2 years but last time I did this it worked for steam.

[patio]

It's a shoddy rip-off of the original...which was nLite.

Shame on them for the naming scheme...

But hey...it uses TupperWare as an endorsement...(probably not certified btw)...so how bad could it be ? ?

[patio]

The other thing not mentioned is many of those apps listed are affiliate links...and come bundled with your garden variety of adware etc...

[EricA.]

Ninite does not come with adware. And ive never heard of the previous tool before.

[patio]

Please re-read what i posted...i never stated the app comes with adware.

It pays to do your research...nLite was the original.

[BC_Programmer]

It pays to do your research...nLite was the original.

It does indeed.... But even a cursory look shows the two programs do completely different tasks.

nLite is for slipstreaming software and drivers into Windows Installation media. It is called NTLite for the more recent versions, supporting Vista through Windows 10.

Ninite is basically intended to allow installing applications without having the included adware or other required "uncheck this" stuff. (Toolbars, etc.) Has nothing to do with preparing ISO's or slipstreaming.

Using nlite/vlite/ntlite to slipstream ninite onto an install is apparently fairly common- you slipstream ninite then as part of post-install, and then have niinite handle installing desired software, rather than slipstreaming a bunch of applications onto the media.

Personally, if I was to use something like that, I'd rather not rely on a commercial product, since it feels very "Open sourcey" (eg apt-get on Linux). So I'd probably use Chocolatey.

[patio]

The only contention i have is you seemed to pigeon-hole into strictly a tool for slipstreaming drivers into a Win install..
Used properly it could do all the above listed...and was much cleaner doing so.

[BC_Programmer]

Could you explain what you mean? both nLite and NTLite appear to be quite clearly deployment tools intended for creating custom installation media.  If you want to call that pigeonholing, well, that is on nLite then, since it states directly that it "will guide you through the process of building a custom Windows installation" and if you select an invalid Folder for the Windows Install Media, it will have a message which includes "nLite is for a pre-install environment only, meaning that it cannot modify an existing Windows installation."

There is no automated database where you can check off Firefox or Skype and have it added; you add the executables. of course, you can have them run silently or without adware with the right switches, but it's not an updating tool.

The closest I can seem to determine is that NTLite allows a mounted deployment image to have software installed on a running system. eg a WIM that you added Firefox or Skype or Chrome or whatever to can have that installed directly to a running system. But I cannot find any way to, say, have software updated in some automatic fashion, which is part of the purpose of ninite.