The catastrophe of NTLite

[ENVIE_Maine_72]

I've been managing the reinstallation of 150 PC (DELL Optiplex 3050), and I decided to use NTLite to speed up the process.
I was confident I could use it to obtain the updates and automatize that step, but everything went wrong.

Wether it is the integration of updates, or of drivers, nothing works as intended.
When I load the W11 Pro image and I go in the Updates tab, I don't find all the updates that are supposed to be found when using Windows Update on the DELLs I'm operating. It seems that the updates proposed are related to the machine I'm running NTLite on, wich is stupid if that ends up being correct. Speaking of wich : the distinction between "Mounted images", "Live install", and "Image history" is absolutely chaotic. I don't fucking know what "mounted" means in the context of NTLite, nor Live instal, wich indicates a problem or UI design (and perception of what someone else than you can understand, and I'm not even mentioning the semantic paradoxes involved, wich seems to echo the dual purpose of NTLite to catch the image of a running OS and/or to edit an ISO).

Anyway, back to my description of the problem :
1 - When I search for updates automatically in the "Updates" tab, I just have a tiny amount of updates proposed. And the "installed" or "downloaded" means nothing to me. Installed ? What do you mean ? What the heck does this mean ? You can't install them given that I'm tweaking an ISO -_-.
2 - The updates on the right panes are useless : nothing correspond to what I'm looking for. I have the names of the KB packages I'm trying to add to the image, and I don't find them, while I can perfectly find them on the Microsoft Updates Catalog.
3 - When I search for updates automatically, NTLite constantly rewards me with an error message saying that the temp updates folder (automatically created by NTLite) is corrupted or some file is not readable. I've triple checked, the NTLite folder in question has always the correct NTFS rights.
4 - Secondly (and that might be related), when I add the .CAB I downloaded from the MUC, I have a similar error message saying "This file is corrupted or not usable" (in french). I wasn't able to add a single .CAB with success, all always failed despite even reinstalling NTLite in a repertory with no space, and using a renamed TEST.CAB that I had put at the root of the C:\ drive.

For the drivers :
5 - When I add the folder containing all the drivers I have exported from one of the machines (used as a master), it correctly add them in the list and seems to be integrating them in the final ISO. But as soon as I reload the ISO or the presets I saved, nothing appear anymore. It seems that as for the updates, the right pane must be used to find some drivers actually present on the actual running machine, and that's god damn confusing.
6 - Adding the previous drivers on the top of it result in an error message about corruption or readability, and nothing appears in the list.
7 - I never managed to reach a healthy W11 installation with a NTLite ISO where the drivers were integrated ; most of time I had "Installation failed" messages during W11 setup, and I could not check of the drivers were correctly installed. On the few ISO that worked and were I reached the desktop, I don't remember if I had correctly integrated the drivers or not given the problem #5 (absence of entries in the list of drivers).

Failure of installation :
8 - I only managed to reach the desktop for a few attempts, mostly at the begining of using NTLite during my "tests", and shortly after, all my attempts to add things (updates or drivers) resulted in constant failure, with various sources of problem, going from "Installation failed" (with no details) to BSOD with "Recovery [...] nvstor.sys" messages that achieved to drain all my energy.

You have to understand that I had the time to install more than a hundred of PC, by a natural mean (with normal ISO, and Rufus or Ventoy), during all the testing phases with NTLite I made on a separate PC ! You can imagine the number of attempts I have tried with no success, hoping for it to finally work so I could speed up the rest of the PC to install !! You can count those NTLite attemps in dozens, and finally I have installed all the PC without it...

So, the purpose of my message here is a mix of troubleshooting and feedback, and a message in the bottle : please do something with your software because as it is, it is an horrendous experience that I have to qualify as non viable in an IT structure. I'm a little technician with a large but not that deep knowledge, I can edit ISO, inject things, but I'm desperate and powerless in front of the absurdity of NTLite's UI and the catastrophy of its constant failures.

Keep in mind that I'm so persevering and strong mentally (not to say dedicated to do my work correctly and to learn) that I have tried DOZENS of time, recompiling ISOs each time. You have to accept, at least, that my message is not thrown easily at your face nor done with disrespect for your product. I did my best, and my feedback is that no matter the tons of webpages I've read, nothing seems to beat the opacity of NTLite.

 

[JBish]

Attach your config files...

 

[ENVIE_Maine_72]

These are two of them that I miraculously saved. One has no drivers added, the other has some.

 

[nuhi]

1 - When I search for updates automatically in the "Updates" tab, I just have a tiny amount of updates proposed. And the "installed" or "downloaded" means nothing to me. Installed ? What do you mean ? What the heck does this mean ? You can't install them given that I'm tweaking an ISO -_-.

Installed means it's installed into the target, for image that can mean partially installed, integrated.
Downloaded means... downloaded, not yet installed.

Your tone is unjustified, is it really so confusing what installed or downloaded means, but I'll reply to all like this first message does not exist.

2 - The updates on the right panes are useless : nothing correspond to what I'm looking for. I have the names of the KB packages I'm trying to add to the image, and I don't find them, while I can perfectly find them on the Microsoft Updates Catalog.

For example?
Which Windows image (exact version from the status bar) and which KB is missing, not found?
Important is did you start the update downloader after loading the image or just randomly picked some from the supported update list?

3 - When I search for updates automatically, NTLite constantly rewards me with an error message saying that the temp updates folder (automatically created by NTLite) is corrupted or some file is not readable. I've triple checked, the NTLite folder in question has always the correct NTFS rights.

Never heard of that, but it's finally something to go by. Please repeat the action and when it happens, attach the log.
Menu - Send logs, just include the main ntlite.log (and to be safe previous session ntlite.log.bak)

4 - Secondly (and that might be related), when I add the .CAB I downloaded from the MUC, I have a similar error message saying "This file is corrupted or not usable" (in french). I wasn't able to add a single .CAB with success, all always failed despite even reinstalling NTLite in a repertory with no space, and using a renamed TEST.CAB that I had put at the root of the C:\ drive.

Send me a link to that CAB and I'll test it, it's possible it's not supported, Windows updates have various formats and not all are supported.
Or you meant CAB format for a driver? Extract those to a folder and add that instead, send me a link, it could support those.
Main pathway of driver integration is INF drivers with their acompanying files inside its dir.

For the drivers :
5 - When I add the folder containing all the drivers I have exported from one of the machines (used as a master), it correctly add them in the list and seems to be integrating them in the final ISO. But as soon as I reload the ISO or the presets I saved, nothing appear anymore. It seems that as for the updates, the right pane must be used to find some drivers actually present on the actual running machine, and that's god damn confusing.

What do you mean nothing appear anymore, you would like previously integrated drivers to be on the driver integration queue/list?
They can be found in Components - Drivers, with all the other drivers in Windows.
Hm, to add an existing drivers list section on the drivers page, not a bad idea - but let's first see if that's what you meant.
When you try to add same drivers to the image, are they detected as existing?

Not sure what you meant by confusing right-side hardware checklist, feel free to suggest ideas.

6 - Adding the previous drivers on the top of it result in an error message about corruption or readability, and nothing appears in the list.

You didn't read carefully, they are existing, not corrupted.
If you see differently, give me an example which driver when I add it works, then when I try to readd it says corrupted.

7 - I never managed to reach a healthy W11 installation with a NTLite ISO where the drivers were integrated ; most of time I had "Installation failed" messages during W11 setup, and I could not check of the drivers were correctly installed. On the few ISO that worked and were I reached the desktop, I don't remember if I had correctly integrated the drivers or not given the problem #5 (absence of entries in the list of drivers).

Then skip those bad drivers, doesn't mean if a tool can integrate that your job is not to filter what is being integrated.
Find the driver that breaks your machine and avoid it.

Failure of installation :
8 - I only managed to reach the desktop for a few attempts, mostly at the begining of using NTLite during my "tests", and shortly after, all my attempts to add things (updates or drivers) resulted in constant failure, with various sources of problem, going from "Installation failed" (with no details) to BSOD with "Recovery [...] nvstor.sys" messages that achieved to drain all my energy.

Do you have a preset demostrating that, is it one of these attached?

You have to understand that I had the time to install more than a hundred of PC, by a natural mean (with normal ISO, and Rufus or Ventoy), during all the testing phases with NTLite I made on a separate PC ! You can imagine the number of attempts I have tried with no success, hoping for it to finally work so I could speed up the rest of the PC to install !! You can count those NTLite attemps in dozens, and finally I have installed all the PC without it...

Same here X10 and I never saw an issue, means nothing. For example if you just ignore that a bad driver breaks your install, all else is pointless.
It's easy to blame a tool, of course, especially one that allows so much to do.

So, the purpose of my message here is a mix of troubleshooting and feedback, and a message in the bottle : please do something with your software because as it is, it is an horrendous experience that I have to qualify as non viable in an IT structure. I'm a little technician with a large but not that deep knowledge, I can edit ISO, inject things, but I'm desperate and powerless in front of the absurdity of NTLite's UI and the catastrophy of its constant failures.

Gladly would fix all that you prove repeatable, by all means it's in my interest.
So if you have patience, reply to my replies above where not solved.