03-05-2015, 04:27 AM
It's a no finesse, all sledgehammer approach - but I prefer the Beta's VHD file method, where I can keep a pristine backup of the original VHD image plus my preferred apps and tools added in, etc. It's a capacity burden, but I keep an on demand copy of my most updated 'gold' image on the boot drive itself, and I'll maybe keep an archive of some on another slower higher capacity drive as a long term backup. Let 7-zip crunch the VHD filesize down as much as possible (roughly half) and then extract back to the boot drive after deleting an ~old one that might be getting bloated.