W10 Custom installation

Prophet G · 18 Sep 2018

Hey,

I've been looking for this for a while with no success, I can't find exactly what I want.

Is there a way to create a bootable and installable iso of the current state of the system (with all my programs and settings)

Installable like I would install a regular Windows (Rufus, USB key, reboot and clean install)

I know there are other solutions to achieve what I want, but I want to know if I can do it the way I described it.

dalchina · 18 Sep 2018

Please see:
Create Windows 10 ISO image from Existing Installation | Windows 10 Tutorials
part 2

Prophet G · 18 Sep 2018

Thanks that's perfect

Ztruker · 19 Sep 2018

I have to ask

Why not use disk imaging? Faster and surer and you get exactly what was there when you made the image.
Macrium reflect to an external hard drive is the idea way to go.

I know you didn't ask for this but I had to mention it, I just had to.

dalchina · 20 Sep 2018

Prophet G · 20 Sep 2018

I'm having troubles trying to convince myself of going this way.
I don't know if these programs are 100% reliable. I'm afraid of glitches

dalchina · 20 Sep 2018

Macrium R has a wide audience. Many here use it and rely on it. How many people would ned to confirm that for you to believe it?

Would you rather have the only option every time sthg goes wrong and can't be fixed of clean installing?

If you have a disk image you have a full backup and a second chance.

Without that you could be on your own- and a lot of our time could sometimes be saved if people used disk imaging.

The choice is yours, of course. And oh, you needn't worry about backing up either- nothing will ever go wrong, will it?

Prophet G · 20 Sep 2018

I'm going to give it a try, storing the image on my raid for extra safety.

The way I described earlier allow a faster W10 install since all sessions information are already inside (according to the tutorial in the link) .
But with imaging, let's say something goes wrong, and W10 becomes unbootable, if I clean install a default W10 and then restore my image, will it also restore all different session settings ?
I'm asking because everytime I install a system for myself, first thing I do is activate the hidden admin acc, switch to it, delete the previous session and rename the "real" admin one and use it. And I have to admit that sometimes I forget to do it so I have to re do all my settings lol. In the tutorial to create a custom W10 install its specified that all sessions will be the same. But what if I restore an image while on the "fake" main session ? Will it work the same way?

dalchina · 20 Sep 2018

Hi, if Windows becomes unbootable/corrupt/disk dies... then restoring an image restores the used data on the selected partitions.

That is, those partitions are restored as they were when the image was taken.

Imagine Windows is corrupt. You'd boot Windows from Macrium R's boot disk (or Kyhi's Win 10 PE boot disk which includes a copy of Macrium R) e.g. You'd then restore partitions as necessary.

(Macrium R has an option to automatically select all partitions created when Windows was first installed).

Everything should then work exactly as when you created the image.

You can create differential images- the difference between 'now' and your first (base) image. These are smaller and faster to create. Macrium R will automatically maintain the number of differential images you keep - options to specify this. So if you want 5 max, then the oldest is deleted if you have 5 on disk.

Thus you need 1 base, or 1 base + any 1 differential image to restore partitions.

Images can also be mounted and files extracted.

Licensed version adds more, + access to forum. Huge amounts of documentation, videos etc around.

fdegrove · 20 Sep 2018

Hi,
@Prophet G: I've rarely come across a backup programme as reliable as Macrium Reflect.
To give you some idea, we used to use scsi tape streamers along with fancy programmes but they'd still fail occasionally.
I've never seen MR fail as a software programme, never.

That said, you can't have enough backups, right ?

Cheers,