Custom Rufus/Windows Setup with 3rd party apps to install?

I have several shareware apps to install during Windows Installation, that I would like to install during Windows Installation. Will Windows still install if I make a partition with some of the excess space and run the programs with batch files? OR will Windows 11 Installation fail?

Also,

I have been pulling my hair out trying to solve a VMware Workstation 17 problem, every time I try to create a VM and save it on a partition on a MY Book partition to burps and says" Can't change tests directory to Drive J "Access is denied", Has anybody ran into this and solved it I did the permissions thing on the partition [set them all to full control]. Is there another solution for this? Does there have to be a O/S on the drive? [There is none]

For your first question about installing shareware apps during the Windows installation, here's the deal: You can technically create a partition on your drive and store the installer files there. However, the Windows installation process itself doesn’t natively support running batch files or installing apps directly during the OS setup phase (unless you're doing something like creating a custom unattended installation, which requires more advanced setup). If you’re just installing Windows normally, you’d want to finish the installation first, then run your batch files after the OS is up and running. Windows should still install fine as long as you don’t mess with the system partition during installation.


Now, for your VMware Workstation problem: The "Access is denied" error usually points to permissions issues, but since you’ve already set full control, there’s a couple more things to try. First, make sure you're running VMware Workstation as an administrator (right-click and select "Run as administrator"). Also, check the disk format and make sure there’s no conflict with any drive letter assignments.


Since you mentioned the My Book partition doesn’t have an OS, that could be causing some issues too. Some virtual machines can struggle with non-OS drives, especially if VMware is trying to access certain system resources. You might want to try creating the VM on another internal drive, or reformat the external drive to NTFS if it’s using a different file system.


Another thing to consider is checking for any disk encryption or security software that might be blocking VMware from writing to the partition. Sometimes, security features can cause "Access denied" errors, even if permissions look fine.