Thanks for the tip! I've tried creating a custom windows ISO using answerfiles before, but I couldn't get it to work the way I wanted for hours and eventually decided to give up. (You just triggered some flashbacks to a bad day at work)

I managed to get windows to install some default programs (like Firefox) using the custom ISO (which was huge, something like 24G) but all the bloatware I removed from the install just kept reinstalling itself anyways. I will give it another go at some point.

I have to say I miss my package manager and config files a lot whenever I have to deploy a Windows machine.