Windows 10: Creating a custom install.wim for a custom Windows install USB

Kari wrote - "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:" - is there a comprehensive list of the 'system elements' of Windows10. Normally when I build a Windows system, I relocate Documents, Pictures, Videos, Downloads, Music, and my Outlook PST on a seperate drive for backup and performance reasons. So, at the very least I would need to place these back onto the "C" drive before doing a DISM "capture-image". Are there any other files/folders that I need to make sure are located on the "C" system volume/partition ?

:)

 

Installing windows off of a USB stick

Step By Step from vista:
From admin cmd prompt

1. diskpart
1a. list disk
2. select disk 1 (replace 1 with your usb drive)
3. clean
4. create partition primary
5. select partition 1 (replace 1 with your usb drive)
6. active
7. format fs=fat32
8. assign
9. exit

Copy Windows Vista's DVD ROM content to the Flash Drive

xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\ (d being your vista cd and e being your usb stick)

And that's it, boot off your usb disk

 

creating a boot ghost usb

Hi Freddy,

Ghost is a disk cloning and backup tool. In Windows, we can easily create a bootable USB with your cloned system.

• First, prepare the WinPE which we will use to capture the customized image by following the steps on this
  
  link.
  
• Boot into WinPE to capture the computer image you have customized. To do it, check out this
  
  link.
  
• Then, convert WIM file into ISO.
• Lastly, create the Bootable USB with your customized image.

Let us know if you need further assistance.

 

How can I deploy a custom WIM image to new machines over the network?

I was provided a WIM file that was created and managed by another group using the ImageX program to mount and modify a Windows 10 install ISO. I am trying to research if it's possible to use MDT/ADK on Windows Server 2016 to allow new machines to boot from the network and install the custom image.

I have been trying to follow this guide ignoring any of the steps that go into creating a new deployment images from a standard Windows 10 install ISO. I encounter an error when trying to following this step:

I am able to load my custom WIM file, but it errors when trying to create the catalog file. The error message is basically reporting an "Unknown error". I've looked online for some troubleshooting steps, but can't seem to find any that deal specifically with my situation. Is there any straight-forward guide on how to take an existing WIM image and deploy it to new machines over the network?