All of the following are activities that should be performed when capturing and maintaining an accurate, secure system baseline except ____________.

Removing all nonessential programs from the baseline image is a critical step in hardening and securing a system baseline.

Excluding the target system or baseline from any scheduled updates and patching would quickly render it insecure and should actively *not* be done if the goal is a secure baseline.

While baseline information should be tracked, directly 'including the baseline image in the asset inventory/configuration management database' is not typical; CMDBs usually store metadata and references to the image, with the actual binary image residing in a specialized, secure artifact repository.

Configuring the host OS according to the baseline requirements is the fundamental process of creating or applying a consistent and secure system configuration.