Custom Windows Installation, pt.1

First things first.

For whatever reason, my desktop isn't playing nice with VirtualBox -- every VM I try to start encounters kernel panics left and right.

Obviously this is a fantastic time to wipe everything and start from scratch.


But because just doing a simple reinstall isn't awesome enough, we obviously have to make a completely custom Windows installation!


For the duration, I'll be following the broad directions given in this Spiceworks article ...


So -- first things first ...

#0 -- The shape of things to come

The instructions linked above look awfully useful -- but what the Unprintable Hades do they mean?!?

1. Prep your Windows Environment
   In other words: make sure that the software you have installed right now is what you want in your future custom installation.
   That's because (if my read is accurate) this process will basically take a snapshot of your current system -- at least with regard to installed programs, device drivers, etc.
   Bear in mind: this is a good opportunity to weed through all the cruft that normally accumulates -- one-off utilities that you never used again, Steam games that have so far failed to do anything more than take up space, ... y'know, cruft.
   
2. Create WinPE boot-disk
   WinPE is the "Preinstallation Environment" -- the bare-bones version of Windows that loads off the CD when you're doing a fresh install.
   We want a stand-alone PE disk so that we can work on our current install -- say, to make an image-file of it -- without having it "on" at the same time.
   
3. Clean the Environment
   We'll use the Automated Installation Kit (AIK) to wipe all personal- and verification-specific data from the environment. This will make it into a "general" installation. If we reboot into Windows at this time, we'll just have to re-enter all that verification stuff; but if we image it at this point, we'll have a general, machine-inspecific version of Windows!
   
4. Reboot into WinPE and image the system!
   ...
   
   Yeah!
   
5. Rip the Windows installation disk to ISO.
   To make a custom Windows installation, we need a regular Windows installation to mess with. This is pretty simple; we can use any old ISO-maker.
   
6. Package the image into the Windows installation files.
   Finally, we take the image (a .WIM file -- Windows Image -- yuk yuk yuk ...) and stick it into the ISO we made in #5.

Sounds good.

What happens now? (Part 2, obviously ...)