Windows 10: Create Windows 10 ISO image from Existing Installation

Yeah, I know what you are saying that's why I pointed it out. I used to get a lot of boot issues before after updates. And I think the GPT/MBR have something to do with it. They don't seem to see each other on the same machine.

 

Hi,

I suspect as much as well.
May be worthwhile figuring out if replacing the MBR disk for a GPT one cures the problem.
OTOH I assume you keep it there for good reason. *Wink

Cheers, *Wink

 

I am sorry about your issues. I cannot find a single reason why dual boot would cause those issues but will do some more testing.

That being said, I've now added a warning in both Part Two and Part Three. This from Part Two:


Warning Capturing install.wim from an existing installation only works on computers / virtual machines where all system elements and user accounts are located on Windows system partition C:.

If any data is on another drive, even a single file or folder be it a Save Game folder of a game or relocated Documents folder, OneDrive located on another drive and so on, the install.wim can be created but it will be corrupt. The ISO created from it will not install Windows.

Use this method in Part Two only if your complete installation is on C: drive. You can for instance clean install Windows on a reference computer, create the user accounts you want to have, install your preferred software and so on, and only move system elements to other drives after you have installed Windows using your custom ISO.

I've done some extensive testing the past few days and have not found any workaround to make methods in Part Two and Part Three work when the complete Users folder is relocated, or when even a single system file resides outsides C: drive.

This is because how install.wim will be created. DISM command switch /capturedir:C:\ only accepts one partition as argument (C: in this example). Data for install.wim will be collected from that partition; if now any elements needed are located on other drives than C: they will be missing and corrupt the install.wim.

@badrobot in your case if I understand correctly you have user data on another drive than C:. I am afraid that in that case your install.wim is corrupt, and ISO made from it will not work. It will boot but fail setting up Windows.

A Windows installation on single C: partition, all system and user data on C: will produce a working ISO. Any system elements on any other drive will corrupt install.wim.

My apologies for letting the tutorial go live without these warnings.

 

Hi @Kari , no worries. I can always easily get out of those issues. And besides, this is what also the forum is about. To discuss issues and warn others.
I have a feeling that the issue I had with "access denied" on my data drive is due to "accounts" which affects ownership of the data drive between 2 installed OSes on separate SSDs. It's possible that it may not be an issue when creating a clean ISO without pre-installed programs and accounts.
As for having a data outside C:, yeah, somehow after upgrading to 14986, there was an extra partition created which probably contains system files. If that is the case when upgrading/updating, then this tutorial may not be always applicable whenever a new build is dropped. But I will still try to finish the process of creating the ISO later with the install.wim I made last night even though it may be corrupted already like you said.
Thanks for the heads up!

 

My tests show that if even one user folder like Documents is moved with Location tab in Properties on other drive than C: or if one game is set to store saved games on another drive, install.wimm will be corrupted.

I understand the reason for this, am looking to workarounds to include more drives in /capturedir switch.

 

Good morning, Kari and Robot.

I'm dual booting also. However, I think I'm OK, if I understand your warning above correctly. But I need to ask anyway, just to be sure:

When I clean installed Windows 10 Build 14791 on this machine, I didn't change a thing it wanted to do. More from lack of knowledge than laziness. *Smile However, I do have an external drive with all my data on it. I did not move the Document folder to that external drive; I simply save my data (Excel, Word, etc.) to it.

Am I correct in thinking the external drive is not what you're giving the warning about?

 

Data should be ok. Seems to be problem if user folders are located elsewhere.

 

It's also a problem if for instance Documents folder is moved to other drive than C: using Location tab in Properties, or Settings app > Storage Locations.

 

What if you saved a file on a different drive (say D: ) but no folders from C was moved or relocated to another drive but the file has been opened on C. Meaning a "link" between D and C was established simply by opening the file from D to C (as can be seen on Quick access folder where the icon for that file is shown after opening it). Will that cause any issue? Will the .wim creation process look for that file?

 

Any "official" relocation of any system element makes a corrupt install.wim, at least according to my tests. Install.wim will be created, but ISO based on it fails to install Windows.

Two examples:

This is OK:



This would cause a captured install.wim be corrupt:



This is OK:



This would cause a captured install.wim be corrupt:

 

And I thought this was a simple question with a simple answer! OMGoodness, I'm so confused . . .

@Kari: OK, I haven't gone in and done any of the things you point out. I did go in and check out Change Where New Content is Saved and found the following:





So, if I were to choose the Toshiba External, for instance, things wouldn't work out as planned, right? Any ISO I attempted to create wouldn't work, right?

If, on the other paw, I leave the options at This PC ( C ), but save my Word or Excel document to the Toshiba by following the path to it; Browse>Toshiba Ext (E: )>Documents>My File Name, would this mess up my attempt at creating an ISO?

 

No new build showing up yet. Have switched to Slow Ring seeing as 14986 has been released there now

 

No. If you manually Save your files to locations other than default locations, but the default locations in Windows 10 itself have not between changed (see Kari's screenshots) you are fine.

IOW, if I read that last part right, you are manually saving your files to a different location. Documents, Downloads, etc. Are all in their default locations, so you should be good to go.

But there may be a caveat - if any program you have installed had decided on its own to face a file to another drive, then according to Kari it might fall as well.

I think we need more clarification on this.

Kari - is the above caveat correct?

 

Exactly.

When capturing the install.wim file with DISM its switch /capturedir:C:\ tells the volume (partition) which contains Windows system files and folders to be included. Folders %userprofile%\Music, %userprofile%\Documents and %userprofile\Favorites and so on are system folders, too, exactly as ProgramData and Windows and Program Files.

All these folders must be located on same volume than Windows; if any of them is located on another volume, install.wim is lacking them therefore making it incomplete, corrupted.

In my tests install.wim could be created even in these cases, but then the ISO failed Windows installation when almost at end, with somewhat misleading error message:



If you simply save your Word documents to another drive than C:, another folder than %userprofile%\Documents, they are not considered system files nor is the storage folder a system folder. You are good to go.

However, let's say you have installed PowerDirector for video editing manually selecting it to be installed on X:\PowerDirector instead of default C:\Program Files\Cyberlink\PowerDirector15, the X:\PowerDirector folder becomes a system folder (installed applications belong to system). therefore these PowerDirector files are missing from system when capturing install.wim and again ISO will not work as excepted.

Based on above, my recommendation is to use a clean install with all defaults as a technician / reference installation. Install all the preferred software on that system, in preferred installation folders. Create the user accounts you want to have on each of your computers you will use this ISO for, customising desktop and theme.

When ready, capture this reference installation, make an ISO of it, install and only then move storage locations if preferred. Notice that this way the ISO will be smaller, too because it does not contain any personal user data.

 

I know that MS remembers the activation status of W10.

If this tutorial is used to create a custom ISO from an existing W7 and/or W8 series install, do Part 2 & Part 3 transfer the Activation status to the new ISO when it is created?