[German]A short note about the software tool Dism ++. It looks like this tool won't be developed further – the developer wants to concentrate on the maintenance of the basic library. In other words, the project switches to maintenance mode. But another developer has spun off a new project.
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What is Dism++?
The tool Dism++ is nothing else than a graphical user interface, with which the Windows command dism can be handled better. The tool is quite powerful, because it offers functions to:
- Start management – i.e. everything that is started automatically under Windows.
- App management – i.e. uninstalling apps
- Toolbox – with various tools for system administration
- System optimization – functions to optimize the system (more caution required)
- Driver management – all drivers installed via Windows Update can be deactivated
- Feature management – you can deactivate functions from the 'Programs and Features' section of Windows.
- Update management – updates can be selected and managed.
- Deployment – all functions to customize an installation image
- Sysprep commands – manages the commands during system deployment
This site contains additional information an a download link for Dism ++.
The tool itself is portable, so there is no need to install it. However, Dism++ must be run with administrator privileges.
Website disappeared – changes announced
A few days ago I had an article Beware of Dism++ with Windows customizations in my blog, where I warned about risks when using the tool. Even then I noticed that the website chuyu.me no longer existed (13.8.2019). Dism++ is in Chinese hands and when you call the URL chuyu.me you get a website with Chinese characters, which contains the following message.
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Website is temporarily unavailable
The website has not been filed in accordance with the relevant legal provisions of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
May have the following reasons:
Reason one: The website has not completed submission in accordance with the requirements of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. […]
But the Chuyu team continues the project on GitHub and on June 7, 2019 the version Version 10.1.1000.100 was released. Currently you can download it here from German site deskmodder.de. Now I read at deskmodder that the developer of Dism++ does not want to add any new functions to this tool. Instead he wants to focus in the future to maintain the main library of Dism ++. Deskmodder interprets this in such a way that there will only be maintenance updates in Future.
New project Nit started on GitHub
But Deskmodder mentions that another developer, MouriNaruto, wants to continue the project under a different name. The name of the project is "Nit – A Windows Image Tweaker based on DismCore". The project has already started on GitHub. The new tool should be based on the core of DISM++, because MouriNaruto has the permission of the original developer.
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Beware: the new "author" of "Nit" is closing all issues, and has not made any real public announcement. In fact he is alone, starts from a new scope, and now controls it and is banning all past contributors.
The most probable reason is that the initial author had legal problem in China, and his website was seized/hacked by the Chinese authorities. He lost the control. All was then erased.
The new tool is unlikely to replace what was a good tool managed by a respectable author. But now he insults old contributors and gives lies and does not want anyone to question his new "lead" on the project (there's even real doubt about the fact he got the real authorization and transfers of rights from the initial author).
He never presented himself to the community. Never published any formal statement.
This tool is then no longer reliable. The closure of the website, the absence of any announcement from the initial author saying he would close the project and give its control to another person, is a good reason for no longer trusting it.
In fact the tool was initially published on a site that said it was "opensource" when in fact only the translations and some small companion libraries were published. But Dism++ Core remained always propriatary and then tied to the level of trust and behavior of the initial author.
Recently (some days before the size was shutdown) this tool received bad opinions with security alerts published on various serious web sites. No reply was ever made to these assertions. The most probable cause if that the initial author got legal problem in China and can no longer work on it, and has even lost control of it (possibly because of the situation in Hong Kong, and local repression).
Now if the tool is managed by a new Chinese person (really in China, he pretends he is Japanese with his fake GotHub account profile) that works for the interests of the Chinese goverment and could ceade it to a company like Huawei (banned from many countries because of severe security issues), and the copyright has even been violated by some new anonym taking control of it and trying to erase the tracks of past contributors, and that does not want to explain what was happening, this tool is no longer trustable at all. Users should uninstall it quickly (before the resurection of the new site that is supposed to reopen in a few weeks in mid-deptember).
As contriobuted to it, now the new author is erasing traces of past contributors, violating the licences granted by ChuyuTeam and the contributors. Only for these copyvio issues, and the evident disrespect of the past users by the new leader, the best to do is to give a very low rating and disrecommand it completely. My opinion is that Dism++ will now become a Chinese governmental spying instrument, sponsored by Huawei, Tancent/QQ, and other major Chinese providers under orders of the PR China. I've already banned myself Huawei, Tancent, Baidu and their universe (they are all publishing very bad tools and have been found guilty of preinstalling spywares in many smartphones and violating the RGPD that they don't care, and so have to be banned as well from imports in Europe and other countries that have adopted the RGPD or a similar legal mechanism, that China does not want to implement at all). Dism++ was the only tool from China that I trusted a bit. This is no longer the case.
And don't think that issues reported by users in GitHub will be solved: they are automatically deleted massively without any explaination or valid reason. Clearly this project does no longer follow now the same goals as the past tool. It is being transformed now into an intrusive tool that will soon behave like many commercial "cleaner" tools that will make more harm than they help and that will steal data nd breach your privacy.
I spoke with the author after the massive closure of open issues, he replied by insults and treated me as an animal (in multiple words for repeating it). And there's no longer any respect for any speaker of any language other than Chinese. This tool will probably remain useful only for native Chinese users in China, but it already has bad reputation in Taiwan and other Chinese speaking areas.
Note that I have infomed GitHub (i.e. Microsoft) about this issue. May be GitHub will cancel the account owned by the new project leader (and will then delete its new "Nit" repository). There is now high risk for the new Nit project to be bundled with Chinese malwares vilating multiple international laws.
Nit is a 100% open source project.
People can review and compile by themselves, like other projects created by myself.
For more information about Dism++, please read https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/dism-new-windows-utility.59389/page-16#post-1546094