Windows 10: A utility to help you with management of your Windows images

A few months ago I began working extensivly with a number of the excellent tutorials on this forum for creating unattended setup images, injecting Windows drivers into a Windows image, injecting Windows updates into a Windows image, and more.

Many of these processes require a very long and tedious series of commands to be run. I decided that I would write a program that would automate all these steps for me.

I thought that I would share my work with everyone as I'm sure that this could be a HUGE time saver for many.

I would still encourage you to follow the tutorials on this forum to learn how to accomplish all these tasks first. Having that knowledge is invalable, and it will only give you a greater appreciation for how much labor this tool can save you.

In particular, I would like to single out the amazing tutorials by Kari and Brink. It is only because of their work that I was able to put all the pieces together.

What this tool can do:

1) Inject Windows updates into your Windows ISO images - This tool began life for the sole purpose of being able to add Windows updates into all my ISO images. I found that I have quite a few ISO images. I have my plain, unmodified retail Windows image, I have my unattended install image for BIOS systems, another for UEFI based systems, then I finally have full sysprep installations for both BIOS and UEFI based systems. Every month, when the new Windows updates are released on patch Tuesday, I like to make new images with those upgrades integrated into them. That would be a huge task if I didn't have a way to automate this. This routine will update an unlimited number of images all automatically.

2) Automatically create a Windows bootable thumb drive from any of your ISO images - In addition to creating a bootable windows thumb drive, this routine can create additional partitions on your thumb drive so you can store other data on the same thumb drive. It can even automatically bitlocker encrypt those partititions for you if you wish.

3) Create a bootable ISO image from files on a drive - Working on a project where you have created an unattended installation or a sysprep installation and now you need to package it all up into an ISO image? This option will let you do that.

4) Export drivers - Want to save all the drivers from your system to a folder and then inject them into a Windows image? This routine will do that for you.

5) Inject drivers into a Windows image - A companion to #4 above, this will allow you to take your exported drivers, or other drivers, and inject them into your Windows image(s). Again, this can operate on an unlimited number of Windows images, updating all of them.

6) Expand drivers supplied as a .CAB file - You may get some drivers as a .CAB file, especially from the Microsoft update catalog. This will expand those drivers for you so that you can then inject them into your image(s). This can operate on an unlimited number of drivers.

7) Create a Virtual Disk (VHDX) - Some operations, such as injecting updates, requires a fixed disk. This is because some the utilities used, such as DISM, require a fixed disk to operate on. As a workaround, you can create a Virtual Disk on a removable drive and use it as if it were a fixed disk. There are also other times where having a Virtual Disk can just be handy so this routine provides a really quick way to create one.

8) Create a generic ISO file - When I'm working on a project, I sometimes like to simply take all the files for the project and bundle them together. You could create a ZIP or other archive file, but I find an ISO super handy because I can simply mount it as another drive letter. Creating an ISO is also really fast. This routine will take the contents of any folder and create an ISO image out of everything in that folder.

Feedback Welcome

Please be aware that I am not a professional programmer. This may not be the most elegant program, but it works for me. When I created it, I was intending for it only to be an aid to me, but it's become useful enough that I thought others might benefit from it as well. If you encounter any difficulties with it, I welcome any comments. Likewise, if you have any ideas for added functionality, please do let me know.

Please find attached WIM 1.0.0.ZIP

- Hannes

:)

 

Help, cant create windows image

Hello there, @fullinfusion!

It seems like some sort of an OS confusion has happened with your secondary WD Black and I'm sorry to hear about that. *Frown
Maybe re-formatting it would help indeed as the community already mentioned. I'd suggest to take a look at this step-by-step how to partition and format an HDD: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=PYCoid
Keep in mind that this will wipe clean the drive, so you should backup all important data from the drive somewhere else.
I noticed from the screenshots that your HDD appears as Disk 0, this means that it's plugged in the primary SATA port where the SSD (as an OS drive) should be. Actually it is possible that because of this Windows cannot create the image there. Swap the ports of the SSD and the HDD, this might help as well.

Keep me posted. Hope this helped! *Smile
SuperSoph_WD

 

[HELP]Image recovery issues

Guys i am trying to fix my cousins Asus Eee netbook. It has a backup image file that is partitioned on the hard drive but when I go to use it the app will run through a few steps and stop. It is running Vista . Any suggestions?

 

Unable to access WD utility software on Windows 10

Hi Tanner,

Thank you for responding.

As you are able to see the drive under Device Manager, I suggest you to update the driver and check if it helps.

Steps to update the drivers:

• Press Windows key + X key when you are at desktop.
• Select Device Manager.
• Expand WD utility software.
• Right click on the driver and click on Update Driver Software.

Hope it helps. Reply to the post with an updated status of the issue to assist you further.