Create Wim image of a running system anyone  

Hi folks
Does anybody know how to make a WIM image of a running system -- the reason I'd like this is that I use a Win to Go on an external SSD at times - often want Windows in totally different languages also with a load of applications in different languages -- not always possible to update a "Works PC" and it's a pain also on a Home PC mamging different desktop environments -- a Windows 2 Go on an SSD just works for me perfectly.

However one of the drawbacks is that these can only be created from a Windows install iso and can't be updated to a newer version of Windows. (Standard WU updates such as security etc still work of course).

I don't want to have to create from scratch and re-install a load of applications again. I've updated a physical instance of Windows and would like to use that. The main issue and I'm no expert at this is to ceate a WIM image of the current system, apply it to the external drive and update the boot via the bcd command (from the new system not the existing "C" Windows install on tthe laptops HDD.

I'm sure it can be done as I think a paid Win2GO app thinks it can do it - bit I don't think it's necessary to pay for this stuff if the main process is simply in creating a WIM image and applying it. Big corporations also deploy loads of "canned" windows images for their own laptops etc so it must be possible.

@NavyLCDR-- you have good ideas on this - any suggestions here please.

Cheers
jimbo

@jimbo45

I think capture a image is the best option for you:
Capture and Apply Windows using a WIM file | Microsoft Docs

Have a nice day!

Friendly greetings
Sorry for any mistakes. English is not my native language.

Tekkie Boy said:

@jimbo45

I think capture a image is the best option for you:
Capture and Apply Windows using a WIM file | Microsoft Docs

Have a nice day!

Friendly greetings
Sorry for any mistakes. English is not my native language.

Alles in Ordnung
Sehr Danke !!!!

Cheers
jimbo

dism++ makes it easy. Can be done from the current running system, no need to boot into pe.




Browse to the save location, click ok. vss is automatically ticked on the running stystem.




Also, If you want to exclude anything from the wim first go to Options>more settings>Settings



add any exclusions you want

jimbo45,

Are you working with primarily UEFI/GPT systems? If you are you might consider using the FFU image format rather than the WIM format. WIM is fine for single partition imaging (WIM limitation: works only on a single partition) whereas FFU creates a full disk sector by sector clone (FFU limitation is only works on UEFI/GPT disks).

Am advantage of using FFU is that you can Mount an FFU image from another Windows system. The mount process creates a VHD file that you will find in C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Temp folder using a naming convention of _ffumount********.vhd where * is a number sequence. You can use third party tools to convert this VHD into other virtual disk formats such as VHDX and run in Hyper V Gen 2 VM. This should allow for customization of an image and then applying that image to a physical disk.