Create Windows 10 ISO image from Existing Installation  

Addendum (source: Creating Customized Windows 10 Version 1703 Media (ISO, WIM, Flash Drive) Final Thoughts from IT )

I'll keep that language pack in mind as alternative solution (hopefully that will work as final resort).

But, before going there i want to show you something i stumbeled upon.

I noticed that my setupact.log holded the error "Error reading image EditionID for selected image; status = 0x80070490"

When that error occurs in the background, setup shows the error that it couldn't find the installation image and then i can only confirm by clicking "Ok." and setup ends.

I'm using a keyless/ei.cfg-less setup, not even an unattend(ed).xml. For basic testing this should work as a bare minimum. Yet still it fails.

Now here comes the funny (or interesting) thing. When i was web searching for results with the same problem, i found a pastebin of someone's setupact.log (setupact.log - Pastebin.com)

That person also used the same ei.cfg-less / keyless setup as me, but guess what?

H(is/er) setup went through just fine! (see image below to compare the results):

https://i.imgur.com/A449i2m.jpg

Yes, h(is/er) installation had multiple editions to choose from, but as you may know my installtion even failed when not removing those install.wim indexes.

If you want to know my official and final re(sponse/action) to this:

"Mind(f*cked/blown)"

ps: Could optimizing install.wim using a different compression value cause any of this? (how to know the used compression of original install.wim?)

Hey my Dutch friend,
You're not the only one active , I've been following your progress! And I'm glad you were able to sort it out. Sometimes it just takes brute force iterations and a little creativity to sort out these problems (especially when help isn't exactly rolling in). That's how I solved my issues. Most of it came down to a lack of memory, biological and computational (lol). <-- That's my final update too

slimmolG said:

Hey my Dutch friend,

Hi American friend ^_^

slimmolG said:

You're not the only one active , I've been following your progress! And I'm glad you were able to sort it out.

Thanks for the support! Though i'll only consider it "sorted" when everything works ;-)

slimmolG said:

Sometimes it just takes brute force iterations and a little creativity to sort out these problems (especially when help isn't exactly rolling in). That's how I solved my issues. Most of it came down to a lack of memory, biological and computational (lol). <-- That's my final update too

lol, true that and hopefully i'll be able to work around the problem in some way.

@Kari Finn or anyone else who might have a response...

Out of curiosity, what happens if we were to run a program in Audit Mode after install? I saw in the tutorial you made sure to state "Do not run any program you install!"

Regards

Kari said:

Quite often, nothing happens. Some (in fact most) software creates AppData folders; as these folders are created in current user's (built-in admin in Audit Mode) AppData, if references to these folders is done using absolute paths like C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Roaming instead of relative paths like %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming, end users will get issues because the software is trying to access built-in admin's AppData which off course is not possible.
Just to be on the safe side, I always recommend not using / starting any installed software in Audit Mode. There should be no need for this, Audit Mode is just to set up Windows to be captured to install image.

Thnx for the response.

I am currently capturing an image I created via Hyper-V after going through your tutorial (knock-on-wood all goes well). Thnx again for all your contributions on this forum. You really are a fountain of knowledge in the Windows realm.

Kari said:

For your next image project, here's how to extend it to make installation completely automatic. Plug in Windows 10 install USB flash drive, boot PC from it and forget it. Have a break, come back to find Windows 10 installed without you having to do a single key press or mouse click.
See tutorial: Create media for automated unattended install of Windows 10 Installation Upgrade Tutorials

Great! Will take that on as my next project for sure. I was successful with my custom install.wim creation and tested it using another VM and all my apps and settings carried over. Thnx again for your tutorial


I need some help on a similar matter. I have a WindowsToGo flash drive and captured an image of it's C: drive to use as a backup image in case I need to recreate it again -- this way I don't need to reinstall all my apps. Although DISM stated my wim was created successfully, I tried to verify the image by testing it in a VM and I get the following error during Windows Setup --> "Windows could not display the images available for installation"

I confirmed the issue isn't the original Windows 10 ISO because when I replace the custom install.wim with regular one, Windows setup boots & installs successfully.

Any ideas?