Create a Vista WIM Image Using ImageX

April 12th, 2007 Posted in Windows Vista

Windows VistaIn order to take an image of a Windows Vista computer, you’ll first need to create a Windows PE boot disk with Imagex on it.  After installing Vista and making the desired changes, you will need to run sysprep to remove the SID and hardware specifics.  To do this, from an administrator command prompt, run:sysprep /generalize /oobeThe computer will take a few minutes to shutdown as it removes all traces of the SID and removes drivers.

Once the computer shuts down, insert the WinPE CD you created earlier, and boot the machine from it. You’ll eventually be given a command prompt to work at. If you want to store your image on a network drive, and you’re on a network with DHCP enabled, map the drive you want to save to now with the net command: net use Y: \\server\share If you don’t have DHCP enabled and need to use a static IP, you can set that using the netsh command. Expect an article shortly with instructions on how to do that.

Now you’re ready to start capturing the image.D:\Tools\Imagex.exe /compress fast /capture C: Y:\image.wim "Vista Image" /verify In the command above, D: is the drive letter for your CD drive. We’ve chosen to use fast compression to keep the image from taking a month of Sundays to create, yet not be absolutely gigantic. Your other options for compression are “high” and “none”, but I wouldn’t recommend either. As a rule, Vista images are much larger than their XP counterparts even with compression, so don’t be surprised when you look at the final size. C: is the drive we want to take the image from, this could just as easily be D: or E: if we had multiple hard drives. Y:\image.wim is the path and name of the file we want to save the image with. For some reason, you also need to give your images a human readable name other than just the filename, in this case we’ve chosen the generic “Vista Image” as a title, feel free to be creative here. The /verify flag does just that, making sure that no errors were encountered during the imaging process and that your final image file is ready to use.

When your image is finished, you’re ready to take out the CD and reboot. The computer you took the image from will act like it’s booting for the first time, going through a long boot process while it creates a new SID and installs drivers. You will not be asked for any setup information during this process. Once this process has finished, the computer is back just as it was prior to taking the image.

Stay tuned for the next installment with instructions on how to apply the image you created to another computer.

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  1. 3 Responses to “Create a Vista WIM Image Using ImageX”

  2. By Allen on May 19, 2008

    Excellent post. Very helpful. However, “High” is not an option for the compress switch. It is “maximum”.

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  2. Apr 13, 2007: Users Suck! » Blog Archive » Deploying A WIM Image With ImageX
  3. Sep 14, 2007: MSDN Blog Postings » Volume Shadow Copy Tip

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