Software to create Windows install disks from existing setup

This is about using software to take an existing Windows operating system (10 and 11) and creating an install disk to do a fresh install of the installation on other machines.

Convert the existing OS to a VHD using https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/disk2vhd

After VHD is created you can load it into VirtualBox and make changes. ThenĀ  recreate a VHD while in VirtualBox. Convert the VHD to .wim, then perhaps install .wim to .esd if necessary, create an install USB from a current Windows ISO using RUFUS, then replace the .wim or .esd file with the one from the VHD you edited.

Maybe. Yet to be tested fully.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/72031-create-windows-10-iso-image-existing-installation.html

Script to create wim file in powershell

Here is a simple powershell script to convert VHD file to WIM file

#set the VHD mount folder
$Mount="c:\mount"
#create a folder c:\mount
Mkdir $Mount

#mount the c:\temp\spiderip.vhd to $Mount folder

Mount-WindowsImage -ImagePath "c:\temp\spiderip.vhd" -Path "$Mount" -Index 1
#Create new Wim image to c:\temp\spiderip.wim folder

New-WindowsImage -CapturePath "$Mount" -Name "spiderip image" -ImagePath "c:\temp\spiderip.wim" -Description "spiderip image" -Verify
#dismount  the $Mount folder
Dismount-WindowsImage -Path "$Mount" -Discard

Convert from .wim to .esd (my win10 install disk uses .esd and when converting vhd to wim I need to change it).

dism /export-image /sourceimagefile:<file location>:\install.wim /sourceindex:<1,2,3,4> /destinationimagefile:<output location>:\install.esd /compress:recovery

 

DISM++ has tool to create a wim image (to replace the install iso one). Just a note.

DISM++ free software, but now 5 years old so not so much
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hEde5WuCSY
Site to download: https://github.com/Chuyu-Team/Dism-Multi-language

NT Lite, paid software
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLCWtC6UYrM
Video makers website on NT Lite: https://christitus.com/ntlite-guide/
Video, also on NT Lite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gMJNQ3yWNE
Site for download: https://www.ntlite.com

 

 

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