Create Windows 10 ISO image from Existing Installation  

@KARIRI, I screwed up! My sincere apologies, I asked you wrong DISM log.

Please when possible, do this:

Once again, follow the steps 4.1 through 4.5 in tutorial, making sure you have set up the scratch folder as told earlier in step 3.6. When DISM then fails to capture the image, run following command:

copy X:\Windows\Logs\Dism\Dism.log Z:\Users\Your_Username\Desktop

Notice please: Replace Z:\ in above command sample with the actual Windows system drive letter you found out with DISKPART in step 4.3!

This copies the correct DISM log to your desktop. Now boot PC normally and ZIP & attach that log file to your post.

Once more, my apologies for not thinking clearly and for giving you wrong instructions earlier.

Kari

3llyot said:

Thank you Kari for this tutorial. I have question regarding part 2 (almost suits my needs :) ). - Is there a way to generalize this, leaving configured accounts in that way, that during installation skip OOBE? I would like to install this image (with the same accounts and settings) to several computers with identical hardeware, but I would like to keep unique SID.

Welcome to Ten Forums!

No, generalizing is usually not possible in an existing Windows 10 installation, culprit being so called app provisioning which in most cases causes Sysprep to fail. There's no harm done if you try, I am just saying it most probably fails.

However, there's an easy workaround: forget Sysprep and instead simply capture Windows image from your existing installation as told in Part Four in tutorial, then create an ISO image as told in Part Five. Burn ISO to DVD or USB flash drive and use it to install on other machines.

Please notice that depending on how much software is installed and how much user data is stored in various profile folders, the captured install.wim might be huge, too big for a DVD. My recommendation is to move all personal user data from profile folders (docs, pics, videos, music etc.) to an external backup and run Disk Clean-up before capturing the image, then when image is done restore data. Additionally, I recommend uninstalling all software not absolutely required on each machine, then run Disk Clean-up again.

Just an example: I have installed full Visual Studio 2017, Office 2016, Windows ADK and much more, making my combined Program Files and Program Files (x86) folders size alone over 63 GB:


That means that my captured image needs a 128 GB USB flash drive 64 GB being not big enough, and about an hour and half to install from it to another PC. Combined size of my user profile folders is over 300 GB, it would be insane to create an image including all that.

Kari

Forgot from my previous post:

Of course, as this image was not generalized, when you use it to install to another machine, you need to generalize it to get unique GUID. On a new installation it will then work.

3llyot said:

Kari, thanks for greetings and answer :) . If you can generalize only using sysprep (which probably will fail like you said) so how can I do that on new system?

I didn't think this through before replying. You would need to boot to Audit Mode when installing to do Sysprep /generalize, which is impossible because installation skips OOBE. Sorry, I need to do some more researching and testing.

I would like to suggest something, an easy way to get what you want to. Please tell me first if you are using virtual machines, and what edition of Windows 10 you are using.

OK, there's a much easier solution for you. It might take some more time to prepare the install image, but the result is "industrial standard", exactly what you need.

My question about virtualization was because this would be much easier using for instance a Hyper-V vm as technician machine (as I do), but you can do this on any physical machine, too.

First, clean install your preferred Windows 10 edition on technician machine, customize it and install all necessary software as told in this tutorial: Customize Windows 10 Image in Audit Mode with Sysprep Windows 10 Installation Upgrade Tutorials

Do only Part One through Part Six of that tutorial; as the tutorial is written for private users and I wanted to make it as easy as possible, the rest of it starting from Part Seven is about an easiest possible deployment by capturing a Macrium Reflect system image backup and then restoring that image to target machines.

Although that would also work for you, in your case it is not a recommend approach; you should only do Part One through Part Six of that customizing tutorial, then come back to this tutorial and capture the image as told in Part Four, and make ISO as told in Part Five.

Sounds complicated, is extremely easy. Just let me know if you want to automatize setup phase and / or OOBE, I can provide sample answer files to be used if you are not familiar with creating unattended answer files.

Kari