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3 reasons I modify Windows instead of using a custom ISO
- Custom Windows ISOs are tempting, but could potentially contain unwanted software or changes that may not be apparent until after installation.
- Creating your own custom ISO is a lengthy process with potential pitfalls, such as large file sizes or failed installations.
- For most users, modifying Windows after installation with tools like WinUtil or Start11 is simpler and safer than dealing with custom ISOs.
As much as I love Windows 11, it's not a perfect operating system, and I know many others feel even more strongly about it than I do. There are many ways in which you can modify or customize Windows to make it suit your tastes, and recently, I wrote a guide on how to create a custom Windows ISO with the programs you want.
But I want to be totally clear in saying that just because I wrote that guide, it doesn't mean I think creating a custom ISO is a good idea. In fact, I much prefer customizing Windows after the fact over using a custom Windows ISO, and I have a few reasons for that.
Third-party ISOs are potentially dangerous
You never know what's been changed
First things first, you've probably seen a few custom ISOs around the web that modify WIndows in one way or another. A good example is Tiny11, which I've gone hands-on with to compare the size against Windows 11 proper. These ISOs may be tempting since they do all the hard work for you, but make no mistake, they're not without drawbacks.
: BIG Windows 10 "Fall Creators" Update: New Features (Viral Tech)
While the developers of these ISOs can claim they only make some specific changes, there's no telling how a Windows ISO has been modified unless you know how to dive into all the files and see everything that's different. That's not easy, and for most people, you're only going to know once you've installed it, at which point you might already have some unwanted software on your PC. It's a big risk that my colleague Elliot Alexander has written about at length.
Even if there's no malware in these ISOs, many times these custom ISOs may not work with Windows Update, or the changes they make can be undone by an update, so it's likely not worth the risk in the end.
Creating your custom ISO is a nightmare
I wouldn't wish it on anyone
So, you can't download third-party custom ISOs, so what if you make your own, as I wrote about in my guide? Well, I can't actually get behind that method. While it works, it's a very lengthy process, and my example in that guide was just for installing some software. If you want deep customizations like disabling certain features or apps, it takes that much longer.
But the worst part is what you don't see in that article. Prior to writing it, I did a lot of testing with different methods. In fact, I tried working on that article a year ago and we didn't publish it at the time because I could not get it to work. Even the article I did write on how to make a lightweight ISO has a comment saying that they followed the steps and their final ISO is huge. That happened to me multiple times, too, and those super-large ISOs don't actually work. To be honest, I still don't know for sure what I did wrong. The steps in the more recent guide were the only ones I was able to consistently reproduce to get an ISO that was a normal size and still functioned.
I'm sure someone out there has more intimate knowledge of all the minutia to make this process work more smoothly, but I'm a fairly experienced user who followed online guides as close as possible and I still had a ton of issues. No normal person should go through that.
Modifying Windows after the fact works just as well
How many PCs are you setting up, really?
Using a custom Windows ISO may be useful if you want to set up multiple PCs with the same apps and changes over and over, but unless you work in a specific IT setting, are you really setting up that many computers at a time to justify this? And even if you do, chances are you have deployment tools that make it easy to enforce these changes on multiple devices at a time, so these steps are unnecessary.
Any changes you might want to make to a Windows image can likely be made after the fact. Installing the programs you want may take some time, but you only really need to do it once. Or, for packages available through Windows Package Manager, you can even create a list of packages to automatically install so you can speed up the process that much more.
How to use Windows Package Manager (winget) on Windows 11
Windows Package Manager gives you an easier way to install and manage your apps on WIndows 11 and 10. Here's how to use it.And, for modifications to Windows itself, there are plenty of tweaking and debloating tools around, too. A popular one is WinUtil by ChrisTitusTech on GitHub, which can change a wide range of Windows settings, remove Edge and OneDrive, and much more. You can also use tools like Start11 to modify your Start menu, or use an app like Files to replace File Explorer. There are plenty of ways to make Windows work for you without having to modify an ISO.
Custom ISOs are only for specific users
It doesn't need to be said, but I'll say it. Custom ISOs are an option for very specific people with very specific needs and wants. That's not me, and most likely, it's not you, either. Whatever modifications you want to make to Windows, you can do after installing it using a regular ISO that comes from Microsoft, which you know is reliable.
If you really want to avoid anything Windows does, your best bet is probably to just run Linux instead. There are plenty of distributions to choose from, all coming from reliable sources, so you don't have to rely on potentially shady mods or go through the trouble of creating an ISO yourself.
