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Notes

A notes card sits above the pending-changes list, carrying what this particular run is worth knowing about: a read-only mount, other mounted siblings, a Defender caveat, and so on. It is built per run, so it reflects the current image and the current queue rather than a fixed list of tips.

Hovering a note shows an X to hide it, and the note stays hidden in later sessions. Critical notes are excluded from this - the destructive and boot-integrity ones (no boot manager found, disk auto-partitioning, irreversible Secure Boot actions, a missing EFI partition) carry no X and cannot be dismissed, since they warn about steps with no way back. Dismissed notes all come back through File → Settings → Reset warnings.

Remove Non-essential Editions

Provides the ability to manually select which editions to remove. You can also manually remove editions on the Image page directly by right-clicking it and choosing Delete.

Image Format

One radio group decides how the processed image is written. The choice only affects the output container, not what was queued, so the same set of changes can be written in any of these formats:

• Standard, editable (WIM) - the default. Largest of the three files, and the only one that stays ready for mounting and further editing in a later session. Pick it while the image is still work in progress.
• High compression, read-only (ESD) - the smallest output, at the cost of editability: an ESD has to be converted back to WIM before it can be edited again. Best as the last step, when the image is final and only distribution size matters. Not offered for boot or WinRE images, or on Windows 7.
• Spanned, split (SWM) - writes the install image as numbered parts (install.swm, install2.swm and so on) instead of one file, so no single file exceeds the part size set in the spin box beside the option. It defaults to 4000 MB, which stays under the FAT32 4 GB single-file limit. Windows Setup reads the parts natively, no extra step at install time.
• Keep image mounted - writes no container at all. The changes are applied to the mount directory and left there. Nothing reaches the actual image until you unload with saving enabled, or reapply in another session. Useful across several sessions, to avoid waiting for saving and remounting each time.

Image Process Queue

With this option, selected current tasks can be multiplied to the other editions on the loaded image, not needing to manually do so for each edition.

For example, you can select to integrate a driver to install.wim and also to boot.wim, or the same updates for Home and Pro edition, in one session.

Tweaks spread across editions the same way, and each edition applies the ones it actually supports - an edition that lacks the component a tweak targets skips that tweak rather than the whole set being dropped for it.

Defender and Tamper Protection

Disabling Defender on the live installation cannot work while Tamper Protection is on - Windows blocks the change regardless of who makes it. When a run queues that tweak against a live target with Tamper Protection active, NTLite stops and says so before processing rather than failing halfway.

This prompt cannot be suppressed, and it does not take a wrong answer: Cancel aborts the apply, while OK opens Defender's own settings page and re-checks. Turn Tamper Protection off there, reboot - the reboot matters - and continue. Doing it offline on an image instead sidesteps the whole thing.

Create ISO

Automates ISO creation at the end of the process. By ticking the checkbox you will be asked for a file destination.

The “Prompt for any key before booting” option appears under the enabled Create ISO. This option controls whether an ISO prompts for any key on boot, or directly proceeds with the boot without any prompt.