Software remastering
If the codebase does not continue to parallel an ongoing, upstream software development, then it is a fork, not a remastered version.
Common examples of software remastering include Linux and Unix-like distributions, and video games.
Remastered Linux, BSD and OpenSolaris operating system distributions are common because they are not copy protected, but also because of the allowance of such operating systems to grow an application for taking a snapshot of itself, and of installing that onto bootable media such as a thumb drive or a virtual machine in a hypervisor.
[1] A global community of Linux providers pushes the practice of remastering by developer switching, project overtaking or merging, and by sharing over the Internet.
[2] These might involve critical system software, but the extent of the customizations made in remastering can be as trivial as a change in a default setting of the distribution and subsequent provision to an acquaintance on installation media.
When an amount of unneeded code is "cut down" to some wanted minimum it removes unwanted features that the original publisher and maintainer needs.
The creator of a published software remaster, if they do no further work to evolve the software, must at least arrange for maintenance support channels, such as updating user documentation, providing a forum, an internet relay chat line, or a wiki, providing intent to maintain a version for the life of its usefulness.
Remastering centers around the reputation of a product, and so the distribution process requires an official, sanctioned version.
Because Linux Mint also offers a Debian Edition, they provide an example of meeting the kind of codebase challenges that goes into remastering a branch of two distributions.
Fedora Linux uses Revisor to enable the user to compose his own customized installation or live media.
(It involves copying portions of the installation ISO, and using the Linux commands mount, mkdir, chroot, mksquashfs, and the Arch package manager pacman.)
MX Linux uses MX-snapshot, a GUI tool, to remaster a live installation into a single .ISO file.
This way, an installation can conveniently migrated or distributed to a new hard-disk or USB-thumbdrive requiring next to no administrative effort, since an advanced method of copying the file system (developed by antiX-linux) utilizing bind-mounts performs the "heavy lifting".
The examples in this section show some historical and operational aspects of the software remastering as it has occurred with Microsoft Windows.
[9] It was written in response to Microsoft's claim, in antitrust proceedings, that IE is integrated into Windows and cannot be removed without breaking other features.
The final option was "overweight", which installed 98lite with the Windows 98 shell and nothing disabled but Internet Explorer still removed.
This includes Out-Of-Box Experience, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Windows Media Player, and others.
It allows customization of the installation process, including Product Key entry, administrator's password, regional settings and creating user account names and other options normally set in Control Panel after installation, as well as numerous 'tweaks'.
It also has the option of saving and loading previous session choices, (in .txt format) to speed up checking or further modification of the custom installation, should that be required.
Such software-minimized CDs can also allow a Windows system to be installed on hard disks below 512 MB in size.
HFSLIP slipstreams (replaces) the original files with the newer versions found in the updates from the Microsoft Download Center.
vLite is the Windows Vista (32 and 64 bit) version of nLite, that can create a cut-down customized installation CD (or bootable USB stick).
[23] ntLite also prevents components from being installed and can remove them from an already-installed system when using a paid version.
Win Toolkit[26] can create a cut-down customized installation CD (or bootable USB stick) for Windows 7 and later versions.
