Win11 Creator

Using A$PECT UTILS’ Win11 Creator

A$PECT UTILS includes a built-in Win11 Creator tool that lets you take an official Windows 11 ISO and produce a customized, debloated version. The resulting image can remove telemetry, bypass hardware requirement checks, and enable local account setup out of the box. You can export the result as a new ISO file or write it directly to a USB drive.

Caution

You need an official Windows 11 ISO from Microsoft’s website before starting. Custom, modified, or non-official ISOs are not supported. The process uses ~10–15 GB of temporary disk space, so make sure you have room.

Note

This workflow is intended for fresh Windows installs, not in-place upgrades of an existing installation.

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The tab is a three-step wizard. The step you are on is shown in the header row, and you can click an earlier step to go back to it until the image has been modified. The status log on the right stays visible throughout.

Step 1 — Select Your Official Windows 11 ISO

1. Open A$PECT UTILS and go to the Win11 Creator tab.
2. Click Browse and select your official Windows 11 ISO file from Microsoft (must be 4 GB or larger). Custom or modified ISOs are not supported.
3. The file path and size will appear on screen once selected.
4. Click Mount & Verify ISO. A$PECT UTILS mounts the ISO, checks for a valid install.wim or install.esd, and reads the available editions (Home, Pro, Enterprise, etc.).

Note

Mounting and verification takes around 10–30 seconds, depending on your drive speed.

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Step 2 — Modify the Image

Once the ISO is verified, A$PECT UTILS moves to this step and shows the mounted drive and image file. Choose your edition from the dropdown — Pro is selected by default if available — and tick Inject current system drivers if you want them.

Then click Run Windows ISO Modification and Creator to start the customization process. A$PECT UTILS will:

App & Component Removal:

• Remove 19 bloat apps — Clipchamp, Teams, Dev Home, new Outlook, Bing apps, Solitaire, and more
• Uninstall OneDrive during first logon

System Customization:

• Bypass hardware checks — removes TPM, Secure Boot, CPU, RAM, and storage requirement enforcement so the ISO installs on unsupported hardware
• Enable local account setup — injects an autounattend.xml that skips the Microsoft account screen during OOBE
• Disable BitLocker and device encryption — removes startup overhead
• Disable Chat icon — removes chat taskbar button
• Pin the selected edition during setup — writes setup metadata so OEM firmware keys for a different edition do not force the installer down the wrong product-key path

Privacy & Telemetry Tweaks:

• Disable telemetry — advertising ID, tailored experiences, input personalization, speech online privacy
• Disable cloud content features — app suggestions, Microsoft Store recommendations
• Remove telemetry scheduled tasks — CEIP, Appraiser, WaaSMedic, and others
• Disable OneDrive folder backup — prevents automatic backups to cloud
• Prevent DevHome and Outlook post-setup installation
• Prevent Teams installation — blocks auto-install after OOBE
• Prevent new Outlook Mail app installation
• Disable Windows Update during OOBE — re-enabled automatically on first login
• Disable Copilot and search box suggestions

Optional: Driver Injection

• If enabled, A$PECT UTILS exports the drivers from your current system, injects boot-storage drivers into boot.wim (Windows Setup, index 2), and injects eligible packages into the selected install.wim image. Stale duplicate packages are excluded before injection. Each remaining package is added separately, so one incompatible package does not stop the others. If a package fails, A$PECT UTILS discards the partial mount and retries the remaining packages against the original image. Check the live log for warnings: if every package fails, A$PECT UTILS keeps the original install.wim and still produces the ISO.

Note

Driver injection requires sources\install.wim. If the ISO uses sources\install.esd, leave this option off.

A live log shows progress as each step completes. Without driver injection, A$PECT UTILS writes the setup changes in a few seconds after the ISO copy. With driver injection, this stage usually takes 10–20 minutes, depending on hardware. Keep A$PECT UTILS open until the log reports completion.

Note

The resulting ISO is close to the size of the source ISO. A$PECT UTILS does not remove the unused editions from install.wim; it selects your edition through sources\ei.cfg and autounattend.xml so Windows Setup installs the right one.

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Step 3 — Export Your Result

Once the modification is complete, choose how to save your image:

Save as ISO

1. Click Save as an ISO File.
2. Choose a save location (defaults to your Desktop as Win11_Modified_yyyyMMdd.iso).
3. A$PECT UTILS builds a dual BIOS/UEFI bootable ISO using oscdimg.exe.

Note

oscdimg.exe (part of the Windows ADK) is required. If it’s not found, A$PECT UTILS will attempt to install it automatically via WinGet. If that fails, install it manually: winget install -e --id Microsoft.OSCDIMG

Write to USB

1. Click Write Directly to a USB Drive.
2. Select your USB drive from the dropdown (click Refresh if it doesn’t appear).
3. Click Erase & Write to USB and confirm the warning — all data on the drive will be permanently erased.
4. A$PECT UTILS formats the drive as GPT with a single FAT32 partition (capped at 32 GB, splitting install.wim into .swm files if larger than 3.8 GB) and copies the modified Windows files.

Note

A$PECT UTILS cannot split install.esd. If that file is 4 GB or larger, save an ISO instead of writing a FAT32 USB drive.

Danger

Double-check you have selected the correct drive before confirming. This operation cannot be undone.

Minimum USB size: 8 GB recommended. Writing takes 10–20 minutes.

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Start Over (Optional)

Click Start Over to delete the temporary working directory (~10–15 GB) and return the tool to its initial state, ready for a new ISO. You will be asked to confirm before anything is deleted.

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What the Modified ISO Does Differently

When you install Windows 11 from your modified ISO:

• No Microsoft account required — create a local account directly during setup
• No hardware checks — installs on machines without TPM 2.0, Secure Boot, or supported CPUs
• Dark mode enabled by default
• Empty taskbar and Start Menu — no pinned apps, Chat icon removed
• Windows Update disabled during OOBE — automatically re-enabled on first login to prevent setup interruptions
• BitLocker disabled — removes startup overhead on first boot

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First-login restart

After installation, A$PECT UTILS restarts Windows only after both the system and user customization scripts finish. If user customization has not signaled completion within five minutes after system customization finishes, the automatic restart is skipped. Check C:\Windows\Setup\Scripts\FirstLogon.log and %TEMP%\UserOnce.log before restarting manually.

Troubleshooting

Problem	Fix
“install.wim / install.esd was not found”	The ISO has no Windows installation image — download a fresh official ISO from Microsoft
“oscdimg.exe not found”	Run winget install -e --id Microsoft.OSCDIMG then retry
USB drive not showing up	Plug it in, wait a few seconds, then click Refresh
Driver injection seems stuck	WIM servicing can pause at a mount or commit. Allow 10–20 minutes depending on hardware, and check the live log before closing A$PECT UTILS
“Access Denied” error	Make sure A$PECT UTILS is running as Administrator
Driver injection warning	Review the live log for the named package. Other compatible packages continue; if none succeed, the ISO is created with the original install.wim
DISM error with an explanation in parentheses, e.g. “exit code 112 (Disk is full)”	A$PECT UTILS now explains common DISM failures in plain language. Free up disk space for a “Disk is full” error, or run A$PECT UTILS as Administrator for an “Access denied” error. If the code has no explanation, search the number on Microsoft’s DISM error code reference
“Setup has failed to validate the product key”	Recreate the ISO with the latest A$PECT UTILS. The creator now removes stale PID.txt, writes sources\ei.cfg, and pins the selected image in autounattend.xml so setup does not use an embedded OEM key for a different edition

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Additional Resources

• Download official Windows 11 media from Microsoft.
• If you prefer to write a finished ISO with another tool, common choices include Rufus or Ventoy.

Note

Always download Windows ISOs from official Microsoft sources or trusted tools like Rufus/UUP Dump to avoid tampered images.

Note

Newer Windows 11 ISOs may not boot correctly on older versions of Ventoy — make sure Ventoy is up to date before use. If issues persist after updating, this is a Ventoy compatibility limitation outside of A$PECT UTILS’ control.

Edition selection uses the language-independent edition ID from Windows image metadata, so localized Pro editions are selected correctly. If metadata cannot be read, Win11 Creator falls back to recognized English edition names; an unknown edition leaves setup edition configuration unset.