Applying a Windows 7 .WIM Image Using ImageX

In my WinPE-related posts I have written a few how-to posts on building a Windows PE boot disk, capturing a Windows 7 image and adding drivers to a .wim image offline. This leads me nicely onto this post about applying Windows 7 .WIM images using the ImageX tool.

Adding Drivers to a Windows 7 Image Offline

In my previous post I provided instructions on how to capture a Windows 7 image whereas here I will cover how to add drivers to an offline .wim image which you may have captured previously.

There are two ways to add drivers to an offline Windows 7 image, both require the use of DISM to mount the image and then add the drivers.

The first is using an answer file with DriverPath entries pointing to device drivers and applying the answer file to the .wim image offline. The second is using DISM command line options to directly point to .inf files without the use of an answer file.

But is there a third method? I cover this at the end of this post under Method 3.

Capture a Windows 7 Image using ImageX

Following on from the previous post on building a Windows PE USB drive with ImageX, this post is about capturing a Windows 7 image using the ImageX tool. As for the destination where the .wim image file will be stored I’ll cover both local drives and network share storage methods.

Creating a Windows PE USB Drive with ImageX

Having familiarised myself with building answer files and sysprep’ing reference machines I’ve recently been experimenting with WinPE, ImageX and DISM to acquaint myself with these tools as well.

My approach to exploring my interest in Windows Deployment has always been to learn from the ground up, hence I wanted to familiarise myself with these WAIK tools to begin with. Before I move on to MDT 2010 I want to write a couple of ‘how to’ posts on creating a Windown PE disk, capturing and applying an image using imagex and my experiments with these tools in general.

In this post I will provide instructions on creating a bootable WinPE USB drive, with ImageX “integrated” into the Windows PE environment.

Building an Unattended Answer File for Windows 7

I want to document the process of building an answer file and preparing and sysprep’ing a reference computer as a way of noting down my findings in exploring my interests in Windows deployment.

This is the first post illustrating the process and settings required to build an answer file to completely automate Windows 7 installation.