Change name of install.wim

John,

I don't know if maybe you are done for the evening. If so, I'll just conclude with the following:

I know that your whole goal here is to be able to select the edition of windows that you want, so let me give you the simplest possible way to do this:

Create your Windows USB installation media however you want. For example, if you use the Microsoft Media Creation Tool, go ahead and do that. I don't care what method you use so long as you can successfully boot from that media.

For example, if you are going to use the Media Creation Tool, then do this:

Start by going up to the Media Creation Tool Web site and create your media again:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10

Once you have created your USB flash drive, take a look at that drive. Depending upon what options you selected, you will see one of the following:

1) A \sources folder in the root of the drive.
2) Both a \x64\sources folder AND a \x86\sources folder in the root of the drive.

Now, take your ei.cfg and copy it into the \sources folder(s). In case #1 above, you only need to copy that file one time into \sources. In case #2 above, you will copy that file twice. Once into \x64\sources and again into \x86\sources.

That is all!

Boot from that media and this time you should get a screen that asks you what edition of Windows you want to install. You will be able to choose from Home, Pro, Workstation, etc.

NOTE: We only need to worry about all the other stuff if your drive won't boot. So long as it boots successfully, the above is all that you need to do.

I have just one more question for you for now. Have you ever made your USB installation drive using the Windows Media Creation Tool? If so, will that media boot successfully on your machine? If so, I can make this process SO MUCH EASIER for you!
yes, it does boot successfully on my machine

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John,

I have just one more question for you for now. Have you ever made your USB installation drive using the Windows Media Creation Tool? If so, will that media boot successfully on your machine? If so, I can make this process SO MUCH EASIER for you!
Yes I use the media creation tool and Yes it boots normally. I use that to be the source for copying the files to my Clean USB Drive . and index =6 (Pro).

RBCC said:

I have just one more question for you for now. Have you ever made your USB installation drive using the Windows Media Creation Tool? If so, will that media boot successfully on your machine? If so, I can make this process SO MUCH EASIER for you!
yes, it does boot successfully on my machine

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John,

I have just one more question for you for now. Have you ever made your USB installation drive using the Windows Media Creation Tool? If so, will that media boot successfully on your machine? If so, I can make this process SO MUCH EASIER for you!
Yes I use the media creation tool and Yes it boots normally. I use that to be the source for copying the files to my Clean USB Drive . and index =6 (Pro).

Wonderful!!! Then here is all that you need to do:

Once you have created your USB flash drive, take a look at that drive. Depending upon what options you selected, you will see one of the following:

1) A \sources folder in the root of the drive.
2) Both a \x64\sources folder AND a \x86\sources folder in the root of the drive.

Now, take your ei.cfg and copy it into the \sources folder(s). In case #1 above, you only need to copy that file one time into \sources. In case #2 above, you will copy that file twice. Once into \x64\sources and again into \x86\sources.

That is all!

EDIT: I'm going to follow up with a complete summary in a little while. You may want to review that to make this all easier to understand.

There are lot of posts in this thread, so let's summarize this all right here.

The Issue

I want to be able to install Windows 10 Pro when performing a clean install of Windows by booting from my USB flash drive, but I am never given a choice to install the Pro edition. How can I resolve this?

There is more than one way to do this, but the simplest possible solution is to create a text file that has two lines of text in it, and then save that file to the "sources" folder(s) on your USB drive.

The text file needs to be named "ei.cfg" and it would contain these two lines:

[Channel]
Retail

Why is This Necessary?

If you have a system that shipped with Windows preinstalled, then the BIOS will have a signature that Windows setup can read that indicates what edition of Windows the system originally shipped with. Note that this does not apply to self-built computer systems that don't come with Windows pre-installed. When you perform a clean install of Windows, Windows tries to make things easy for you by automatically installing that same edition of Windows. This is especially helpful to those people who have no idea what edition of windows to install or what their system originally shipped with, so it prevents the user from having to make that choice, or, worse yet, making a wrong choice only to find that Windows won't activate because they installed the wrong edition.

However, if you upgraded your edition of Windows, for example, from Home to Pro, you do not want this behavior. Adding the ei.cfg file resolves this issue and causes Windows to display a list of all available editions and allows you to select the edition to be installed.

Depending upon your media you may have either one or two "sources" folders on your USB drive. If your media is single architecture, meaning that it contains either the x64 version of Windows OR the x86 version of Windows, then you will find a \sources folder right in the root of the drive. In that case, just drop the ei.cfg file into that sources folder.

If you have dual architecture media, meaning that your media contains BOTH the x64 and x86 versions of Windows, then you will both a \x64\sources folder AND a \x86\sources folder. In that case, drop the ei.cfg file into both of those folders.

Other Issues Discussed in Thread

This is a separate topic so I'm not going into detail here, however, there may be instances where you cannot boot from media created using standard tools such as the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool. In that case, the media needs to be created using some other method, but the above information regarding the usage of the ei.cfg file still applies.

Jimbo noted an alternative method of installing Windows and that method is 100% valid. However, my responses were aimed at making the standard Windows installation process work as expected. This ensures that you go through the standard Windows install experience with no changes in behavior other than to be given a choice of what edition of Windows to install.

How do I make a iso from 1 usb flash drive with 2 partitions with boot.wim in each partition. What piece of software should I use ? I use imgburn but it won't all one film in 2 partition.
John

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Thank you in advance. John

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Thank you in advance. John

RBCC said:

How do I make a iso from 1 usb flash drive with 2 partitions with boot.wim in each partition. What piece of software should I use ? I use imgburn but it won't all one film in 2 partition.
John

John,

Macrium reflect has the ability to image a flash drive, but if I recall, it's possible that this capability may only be part of the purchased version. We may need to check on that.

But, maybe I can save you some difficulty here: Why do you want to image a 2 partition flash drive? If you are only using the flash drive to install Windows from, then simply create your ISO image as always, you only need to create the 2 partitions to install from the flash drive.

Let me explain this in a bit more detail:

First, the whole reason for creating the 2 partition on the flash drive is to get around some limitations. The main problem is that some systems cannot boot flash drives if they are formatted with NTFS. Why do we care about that? We care about this because FAT32 has a limit on file size. It cannot hold files larger than 4GB. If you have an install.esd or install.wim that is larger than 4GB, you have no choice but to store it on NTFS. If your system can boot from a flash drive formatted with NTFS, then you don't need to create a dual partition flash drive. However, if it cannot boot from an NTFS formatted flash drive then we create a small FAT32 partition to perform the initial boot and then we transition to the NTFS partition where the large install.esd or install.wim can be located.

However, when creating the ISO image, we don't need 2 partitions. Even if you plan to use the ISO image to install to a VM, the VM will be able to boot from that ISO image. No such dual partition trickery is needed.

I hope that this helps. If my explanation is clumsy or you need any more help this please do let me know and I'll be happy to help!

Well let's see.. I have 4gig install.wim file and a bookable usb that I would like to "test" in vm machine( VMware workstation. In order to install it I need an iso. I have built a USB with 2 partitions "boot" and "sources" what can I use to do this ? Preferably freeware. John

ISO images do not support the concept of partitions, so you cannot make an ISO image from that. But they do support files larger than 4GB. Instead do this:

First, I don't know how you created your install.wim file, but let's say you did something like this:

Mounted a Windows ISO image and copied all the files to a folder on your HD. Then, mounted the install.wim to another location, made your modifications, and then saved the changes.

So, all you need to do now is take that modified install.wim, and copy it to the \sources folder in the location where you first copied the files from your ISO image. In other words, you are simply replacing the original install.wim with the modified install.wim that you created.

Now, all you need to do is create an ISO image from this folder.

John, if you have a specific program that can make bootable Windows ISO images, please feel free to use it, however I'll give you instructions now on how to do this using the OSCDIMG utility that comes with the Microsoft ADK, which is available for free.

So, if you don't already have the ADK installed, download it from here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...=tia-235208000

Note that this is listed as being the Windows 11 version of the ADK but is fine for Win 10 also.

Start the installation and you will get a list of options to install. The only thing you need to install is the deployment tools.

After installing, just run the command below from an elevated command prompt to create the ISO image. Before you run the command, read the notes that follow the command below.

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Deployment Tools\amd64\Oscdimg\oscdimg.exe" -m -o -u2 -udfver102 -L"VolumeName" -bootdata:2#p0,e,b"c:\ISO_Files\boot\etfsboot.com"#pEF,e,b"c:\ISO_Files\efi\microsoft\boot\efisys.bin " "c:\ISO_Files" "c:\image.iso"

Please be careful with the above syntax. There are no spaces in a lot of the areas you might normally expect spaces. Also, the above is all one big long command, it just wraps on several lines here because it is so long. My suggestion would be to copy the above command to notepad, make any changes needed, then copy and paste to an elevated command prompt to run it.

In the above syntax, note the following:

VolumeName - This is the volume name to assign to the image. When burned to a DVD or Blu-Ray disc, the disc would show this name for the volume name. The maximum length of the volume name is 32 characters. To omit a volume name, you can use -L"" or you can leave off the -L parameter altogether.

c:\ISO_Files - this is the location where the Windows files are located. Change this to wherever your files are located. Note that this location is referenced 3 times in the command. Make sure to change them all.

c:\image.iso - This is the full path and file name of the ISO image you want to create.

Any questions? Let me know!

Not according to what I read on MS technical website. There was a NOTE that said, Note: Windows Setup automatically installs from this file, so long as you name it install.swm.
You will find that on this link.

• Install Windows from a USB Flash Drive