Issues repairing broken offline windows image

FreeBooter · 03 Sep 2021

Are you executing Dism Command from Windows Installation media?

avidscavenger · 05 Sep 2021

Paul Black said:

There was NO malice or detriment attached to my post.

I didn't take offence, just wanted to be a bit tongue in cheek.

NavyLCDR said:

Are you at the C:\Windows\System32> prompt when you run dism? If not, that is likely your problem. If yes, what is the result of:

Code:

dism /?

Yes I am at C:\Windows\System32. And the output I get is similar but not identical to yours. The order of the FFU COMMANDS, WIM COMMANDS and GENERIC IMAGING COMMANDS is reversed.

However I also note that neither cleanup-image nor get-packages options appears in the output that you showed. And I still get those error messages. Makes me suspect that there is something more fundamentally wrong with my image that prevents those options from showing.

At this stage I'm ready to give up. I'm no fan of Windows at the best of times, just trying to do this as a favour for a friend. It is this kind of undocumented nonsense that will send me back to Unix every time.

Ghot · 05 Sep 2021

@avidscavenger

Me... I'm a lazy person.
When I need to fix Windows... I do an In-Place upgrade. It fixes Windows, and keeps all my programs and files.

Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade

Here is the short version of the In-place upgrade tutorial...

DISABLE non-Microsoft:
a) antivirus software
b) firewall software
c) drive encryption software

Make a full OS backup with a program like Macrium Reflect (free)
Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect Free

Go here and get the Media Creation Tool and save it to your desktop.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10

RUN the Media Creation Tool and use it to: Create an ISO image... save IT to your desktop.
This will be the latest version of the ISO image.

Right click the ISO image and choose: MOUNT
Open File Explorer and you will see a new drive letter. It will look like a DVD optical drive.
Double click the new drive letter to open it.
Find setup.exe and double click it to start the in-place upgrade.

Choose the Keep personal files and apps option.

After it's all done... to UNmount the ISO image, right click the new drive letter and choose: EJECT.

The ONLY thing you will lose is some of your personalizations. Your programs and data will be intact.

avidscavenger · 05 Sep 2021

Ghot said:

@avidscavenger

Me... I'm a lazy person.
When I need to fix Windows... I do an In-Place upgrade. It fixes Windows, and keeps all my programs and files.

Excuse me if I've misunderstood but it sounds like this is not possible if your Windows installation won't boot.

Ghot · 05 Sep 2021

avidscavenger said:

Excuse me if I've misunderstood but it sounds like this is not possible if your Windows installation won't boot.

Exactly. You need to be able to boot into Windows to do an In-Place upgrade.

From your 1st post I assume you can boot into Windows. If I misunderstood... then disregard.

avidscavenger · 05 Sep 2021

Ghot said:

From your 1st post I assume you can boot into Windows.

Sorry I realise now it wasn't clear. No the computer goes into an Auto-repair loop. Safe mode makes no difference. It won't even boot into the recovery environment.

Ghot · 05 Sep 2021

avidscavenger said:

Sorry I realise now it wasn't clear. No the computer goes into an Auto-repair loop. Safe mode makes no difference. It won't even boot into the recovery environment.

Ah.... I understand. My apologies.
Again, I'm lazy. If I get into a no boot situation, I restore from a backup or do a clean install.

Ofc, these solutions might not be an option for you.

You probably need this guy... @jimbo45 <------- will "notify" him.

Issues repairing broken offline windows image-image1.png

NavyLCDR · 05 Sep 2021

avidscavenger said:

I didn't take offence, just wanted to be a bit tongue in cheek.

Yes I am at C:\Windows\System32. And the output I get is similar but not identical to yours. The order of the FFU COMMANDS, WIM COMMANDS and GENERIC IMAGING COMMANDS is reversed.

However I also note that neither cleanup-image nor get-packages options appears in the output that you showed. And I still get those error messages. Makes me suspect that there is something more fundamentally wrong with my image that prevents those options from showing.

At this stage I'm ready to give up. I'm no fan of Windows at the best of times, just trying to do this as a favour for a friend. It is this kind of undocumented nonsense that will send me back to Unix every time.

It sounds like you have an older version of Windows that you attempting to repair from. I would suggest you download the newest Media Creation Tool from Microsoft, create an ISO file, mount the ISO file, and then run dism from the mounted ISO file. I think you will find it in the Sources folder. The problem is you have an outdated DISM. Look at your version number compared to my version number.

avidscavenger · 06 Sep 2021

I just downloaded the current release of Windows 10 English International which gave me version 10.0.19041.746 of dism. Not quite as recent as yours (10.0.22000.1 - maybe the default English US release is ahead of the English International release?) But still surely the version of dism is not the problem here.

NavyLCDR · 06 Sep 2021

avidscavenger said:

I just downloaded the current release of Windows 10 English International which gave me version 10.0.19041.746 of dism. Not quite as recent as yours (10.0.22000.1 - maybe the default English US release is ahead of the English International release?) But still surely the version of dism is not the problem here.

Run dism /? on the downloaded version and see the difference. Just make sure you are in the same folder dism.exe is in.