Create Windows 10 ISO image from Existing Installation  

Hi Kari

Many thanks for the great tutorial.

I have a question about step, 2.4) Run Disk Management … is this necessaary if I already have a second 1TB hard drive with plenty of free space? I assume not …

Cheers
Bruce

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aztrix said:

Hi Kari

Many thanks for the great tutorial.

I have a question about step, 2.4) Run Disk Management … is this necessaary if I already have a second 1TB hard drive with plenty of free space? I assume not …

Cheers
Bruce

I think I might have answered my own question, the drive/partition needs to be bootable …

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Hi Kari

Apologies for another dumb question, is there any reason not to use robocopy to copy iso files after dism in part 4.5 while still in the cmd shell?

Cheers
Bruce

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Ok, I have just about got to the end of the process altho I haven't tested it yet …

So hopefully just one more dumb question, is there any reason I can't/shouldn't just copy the install.wim file back onto my USB (as drive that is my install media) and then backup/delete the install.esd before using it?

This will trully be mana from heaven if it works 🙏🏻

Hi Kari,

Nice tutorial, I test with Windows 11 22H2 and everything works perfectly!

I just wondering if is possible to show the first logon animation after we export the custom install.wim and build the ISO using oscdimg.exe

Firstly I thank the author for editing these tutorials.
But I've a question and I hope it isn't too stupid so how do you guys compare these solutions here to Macrium Reflex Free?
I'm specifically inquiring for a laptop with Windows 11 Pro that I just bought (second hand with fresh Windows install) so that I can create a 1 to 1 copy and save the image before I start using the computer and installing software.
Thanks to all!

One advantage of a wim file is that it is serviceable. It can be mounted read/write and files can be added/deleted, drivers and updates can be installed.

One simple way is with dism++. save the image as install.wim





https://github.com/Chuyu-Team/Dism-M....1.1002.1B.zip

I decided to go with Rollback RX Home (free), I've been using it for many years on another system and I never looked back.
As you know it's not a backup/clone solution but it creates the first image (locally) after installation then you schedule the following ones.
In case of a disaster there is the option to re-boot the computer from Rollback and there are the options to pick the right saved system image.
I find this solution much more convenient and trouble less compared to other backup/clone solutions, no need to struggle to learn what kind of backup to create, how to create it, where to store it and the most important part is how to reboot the system with that image.
I can't understand why in 2023 these backup/clone software still rely on WinPE (or similar boot solutions) in order to boot the computer from an optical drive so this is the main reason why I prefer Rollback.
So do you know any backup software that have an all in one suite that creates a bootable USB image?

I can't understand why in 2023 these backup/clone software still rely on WinPE (or similar boot solutions) in order to boot the computer from an optical drive

They dont. Winpe can be booted from usb stick or hard drive.