Windows 10: Oi, heads spinning: DISM.exe command to capture my current system image for backup while...

Alright for the Desktop Engineers out there: I got two relatively straight forward "DISM.exe /Capture-Image" questions for you. If I wanted to create a system image on W10 Pro using DISM.exe that does exactly the same thing that "Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Backup and Restore Windows 7" does - what would that look

:)

 

Question about capturing a Windows 10 image using DISM


Hi,

I have the following task to complete; I would like to capture an image from a machine running Windows 10 enterprise using WinPE and DISM and then using Windows Server 2012 R2, PXE boot the captured image onto 10 other machines on the network. I would not like to use any third party tools to complete this task by the way. I am planning on following this guide: Deploy Windows 10 using MDT 2013 and WDS TheITBros but am having some trouble completely comprehending the guide. *Confused If anybody can suggest a better guide which satisfies my requirements I would very much appreciate your suggestions.

My first question is (apart from the Server 2012 R2 which is my domain controllor, the 10 machines I wish to PXE boot the Windows 10 enterprise image to, the switch connecting the 10 machines and the network) how many additional machines do I need to complete this task? (I just want to get a clearer picture of how many machines I will need hence the first question)

My second question is about capturing the Windows 10 enterprise image itself. My current understanding is that I have to run sysprep with the generalise and OOBE (set to shutdown) switches to remove the SID's then boot WinPE on the machine and use DISM to capture the Windows 10 enterprise image. Sounds easy so far except that I've looked at some guides online and rather than capturing just the Windows 10 enterprise image, some people also capture their system and recovery partitions. Just to clear up what I mean by this, when you go into diskpart and then type list volume, you are shown (on my machine at least) the system partition which is about 100MB, the recovery partition which is about 500MB and the partition where my operating system is stored which varies from machine in size but is about 470GB on my machine. My point and question is do I only need to use DISM to capture the partition where my operating system is stored e.g. my C:\ drive and will this be enough when I later deploy the captured Windows 10 enterprise image via Server 2012 R2 and PXE booting?

Also, if you could please give me a small explanation on the steps I need to carry out next after capturing the Windows 10 enterprise image with DISM i.e. the steps to deploy the captured image using Server 2012 R2 and PXE booting across my network.This would be really appreciated, thank you.

Thank you,

 

Windows 7 Image backup stuck on removed HDD

If you don't want to use any 3rd party backup software (Macrium, Acronis etc) you could use the DISM command supplied with Windows to capture an image of your drives to backup media then use DISM to restore or even deploy the image(s) created.
There is an excellent step by step tutorial on these forums in the Tutorials\Backup and Restore section for how to use DISM to capture disk images.

 

Current DISM commands as The DISM /ScanHealth, /CheckHealth, and /RestoreHealth are no longer valid.

Not finding the current syntax of this above command to apply to Windows 10 version I am using.

Current version of Windows 10 -

Version 1703 - > os build 15063.608

Windows 10 Professional

Current DISM Commands help file.

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool

Version: 10.0.15063.0

DISM.exe [dism_options] {Imaging_command} [<Imaging_arguments>]

DISM.exe {/Image:<path_to_offline_image> | /Online} [dism_options]

{servicing_command} [<servicing_arguments>]

DESCRIPTION:

DISM enumerates, installs, uninstalls, configures, and updates features

and packages in Windows images. The commands that are available depend

on the image being serviced and whether the image is offline or running.

GENERIC IMAGING COMMANDS:

/Split-Image - Splits an existing .wim or .ffu file into multiple

read-only split WIM/FFU files.

/Apply-Image - Applies an image.

/Get-MountedImageInfo - Displays information about mounted WIM and VHD

images.

/Get-ImageInfo - Displays information about images in a WIM or VHD

file.

/Commit-Image - Saves changes to a mounted WIM or VHD image.

/Unmount-Image - Unmounts a mounted WIM or VHD image.

/Mount-Image - Mounts an image from a WIM or VHD file.

/Remount-Image - Recovers an orphaned image mount directory.

/Cleanup-Mountpoints - Deletes resources associated with corrupted

mounted images.

WIM COMMANDS:

/Apply-CustomDataImage - Dehydrates files contained in the custom data image.

/Capture-CustomImage - Captures customizations into a delta WIM file on a

WIMBoot system. Captured directories include all

subfolders and data.

/Get-WIMBootEntry - Displays WIMBoot configuration entries for the

specified disk volume.

/Update-WIMBootEntry - Updates WIMBoot configuration entry for the

specified disk volume.

/List-Image - Displays a list of the files and folders in a

specified image.

/Delete-Image - Deletes the specified volume image from a WIM file

that has multiple volume images.

/Export-Image - Exports a copy of the specified image to another

file.

/Append-Image - Adds another image to a WIM file.

/Capture-Image - Captures an image of a drive into a new WIM file.

Captured directories include all subfolders and

data.

/Get-MountedWimInfo - Displays information about mounted WIM images.

/Get-WimInfo - Displays information about images in a WIM file.

/Commit-Wim - Saves changes to a mounted WIM image.

/Unmount-Wim - Unmounts a mounted WIM image.

/Mount-Wim - Mounts an image from a WIM file.

/Remount-Wim - Recovers an orphaned WIM mount directory.

/Cleanup-Wim - Deletes resources associated with mounted WIM

images that are corrupted.

IMAGE SPECIFICATIONS:

/Online - Targets the running operating system.

/Image - Specifies the path to the root directory of an

offline Windows image.

DISM OPTIONS:

/English - Displays command line output in English.

/Format - Specifies the report output format.

/WinDir - Specifies the path to the Windows directory.

/SysDriveDir - Specifies the path to the system-loader file named

BootMgr.

/LogPath - Specifies the logfile path.

/LogLevel - Specifies the output level shown in the log (1-4).

/NoRestart - Suppresses automatic reboots and reboot prompts.

/Quiet - Suppresses all output except for error messages.

/ScratchDir - Specifies the path to a scratch directory.

For more information about these DISM options and their arguments, specify an

option immediately before /?.

Examples:

DISM.exe /Mount-Wim /?

DISM.exe /ScratchDir /?

DISM.exe /Image:C:\test\offline /?

DISM.exe /Online /?