Factory recovery - Create a Custom Recovery Partition  

vgkfan83 said:

I have a lot of Software installed as well. I have 4 Adobe programs installed. Those 4 themselves use 7.4GB of storage.

Yeah.

Just to explain, I had one of those for me extremely rare "let's think about other users" moments (honestly, I am the most egocentric b***ard you've ever met!) and I were suddenly a bit worried about the size of your captured image.

However, after reading your posts and seeing the size of your C: drive and seeing the size of captured image was / is within acceptable limits, I stopped worrying.

Kari

Kari said:

Yeah.

Just to explain, I had one of those for me extremely rare "let's think about other users" moments (honestly, I am the most egocentric b***ard you've ever met!) and I were suddenly a bit worried about the size of your captured image.

However, after reading your posts and seeing the size of your C: drive and seeing the size of captured image was / is within acceptable limits, I stopped worrying.

Kari

It probably would've only been about 5-8GB without all the software installed. I just get tired of uninstalling/reinstalling crap every single time I have to do a fresh install. If you are the one that came up with this Tutorial, you are a godsend!

@Kari,


I created a new install.wim file. I have not uninstalled anything from my previous creation, but added more software. The NEW install.wim is 15.9GB. . . The original is 23.9GB. . . What's the deal? LOL


Could it be because I deleted the Windows.old folder a few days ago?

vgkfan83 said:

Could it be because I deleted the Windows.old folder a few days ago?

Most probably.

   Tip

Everything on drive C: will be included in captured install.wim file. Before capturing it for my custom recovery partition, I have a routine to make resulting WIM file as small as possible. Here's what I do on every machine, every time:

• Completely empty user profile folders (Documents, Pictures, Videos, Music, do not touch AppData folder!), backing all personal data to an external disk.
• Unlink OneDrive (tutorial), when unlinked delete everything in OneDrive folder.
• Run full Disk Cleanup (tutorial, see Option Two) selecting absolutely everything there is to clean / remove.

When WIM file is then captured, I'll link OneDrive again and copy backed up personal files back to user profile folders.

Kari

There is a way to minimize the size of install.wim file by excluding some useless files
read DISM Configuration List and WimScript.ini Files | Microsoft Docs

Create a WimScript.ini file containing

Code:

[ExclusionList]
\$ntfs.log
\hiberfil.sys
\pagefile.sys
\swapfile.sys
"\System Volume Information"
\RECYCLER
\$RECYCLE.BIN
\Windows\CSC
\$WINDOWS.*
\Windows\SoftwareDistribution

Any other exclusion is possible.
You can even exclude some user profiles by adding \Users\<account_name> in the ExclusionList

and run

Code:

dism /capture-image /imagefile:Z:\install.wim /capturedir:D:\ /ConfigFile:<path>\WimScript.ini /name:"Recovery" /compress:maximum

@Brink Can you create a recovery partition using a USB Flash Drive instead?

vgkfan83 said:

@Brink Can you create a recovery partition using a USB Flash Drive instead?

Hello Jeremy,

You could create a bootable USB recovery drive.

Create Recovery Drive in Windows 10 | Tutorials

In addition to what Brink told above:

If you create a recovery partition as told in this tutorial, containing full Windows install media, it must be formatted as NTFS because the custom install.wim file is usually over 4 GB, the limit on FAT32 partition.

In that case, see this tutorial for how to prepare your USB Flash Drive: Create bootable USB installer if install.wim is greater than 4GB | Tutorials

Kari