Re: Converting WIM to ISO

[Brian Desmond <brian.desmond () MORANTECHNOLOGY COM>]

I would actually not embed the big WIM in the winpe.wim as otherwise WinPE will cache the big WIM in memory (as I 
recall). I made this mistake and it would take forever to boot. If you just put it in that folder structure you pass to 
oscdimg, it should embed it in the ISO for you.

 

To “deploy” your image you’d want to look at imagex /apply. Looking at the help it would be something like “imagex 
/apply E:\myimage.wim 1 c:\”. You’d need to do the partitioning first (look at diskpart). E:\ being the DVD drive 
letter. 

 

--brian

 

 

 

Thanks,

Brian Desmond

brian.desmond () morantechnology com

 

c – 312.731.3132

 

Active Directory, 4th Ed -  <http://www.briandesmond.com/ad4/> http://www.briandesmond.com/ad4/

Microsoft MVP -  <https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Brian> https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Brian

 

From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of Gibson, 
Nathan J. (HSC)
Sent: Thursday, February 04, 2010 10:19 AM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Converting WIM to ISO

 

Casey, 

 

I have attempted to do what you suggested below and I am miserably failing. !!  I was wondering if you would be able to 
send me a quick guide on how you accomplished this task. Thanks so much for your help!

 

From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of Casey R 
DeBord
Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 2010 3:46 PM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Converting WIM to ISO

 


I think I understand what you are doing wrong.  You must boot into WinPE environment.  You can't make the WIM file 
itself bootable the same way you can make a WinPE image bootable.  You'll have to boot into WinPE and then call upon 
that wim file from within winPE. 

What I would do is mount the WinPE image and move the universitybase.wim file into the file structure of the winpe wim 
file, or boot.wim.  Then when you load into WinPE, the unversitybase.wim file will be accessible in the virtual file 
structure it creates.  I did this with some lab machines that I had student workers deploy.  This way they didn't need 
to authenticate to the network to deploy it for me.    I then just created a batch file that applied the image by 
typing a simple "startdeploy" command or something similar.  They could then walk away and retrieve the dvd after the 
machine had restarted.  But again, your limited to the filesize of your media. 

If that still doesn't make much sense I'd do some more checking on modifying or customizing your WinPE image.  
Essentially you're just putting a wim inside of a wim so you can access the wim after you've booted from the first wim. 
 : ) 

Hope this helps(and makes sense!) 

I can also send you the rest of that guide I wrote if you'd like.  Just let me know. 

_______________________________
Casey DeBord
Systems Administrator, ITS
OTOL #214B
Phone: 308.865.8792
Fax: 308.865.8941 


From: 

"Gibson, Nathan J. (HSC)" <Nathan-Gibson () OUHSC EDU> 


To: 

SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU 


Date: 

02/02/2010 03:30 PM 


Subject: 

Re: [SECURITY] Converting WIM to ISO 


Sent by: 

The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>

 

  _____  




Basically a discover image is used to boot a machine into windows PE mode.  What I want to do is create an ISO with an 
image I created. The image is in WIM format. I want to convert this 4 gig customized image into I ISO so I can put it 
on a DVD and carry it out to remote locations and install my customized image from the DVD. Currently my customized 
image is in WIM format on the deployment server. How do I covernt that WIM to an ISO?   I followed the steps below (you 
had sames steps I tried) but the ISO wont boot. I get the following error…. 
  
FILE: \windows\system32\boot\winload.exe 
  
Status: 0xc0000001 
  
Info: The selected entry could not be loaded because the applications is missing or corrupt 
  
  
These are the steps I took to create this ISO that doesn’t work. 
  
1.       Installed Windows 7 on a machine and customized it 
2.       Sysprep /oobe /generalize /reboot 
3.       PXE boot to Capture image and pushed it to the deployment server 
4.       Tested the deployment process with the image and it works great deploying over the network 
5.       Log into the deployment server and exported the image to the c:\univeristybase.wim 
6.       Opened a Deployment tools command prompt and ran the following: 
a.       Cd C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools 
b.      CopyPE x86 C:\Winpe 
c.       Copy /y c:\universitybase.wim c:\Winpe\ISO\Sources 
d.      Cd C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools 
e.      Oscdimg –n -m -bc:\winpe\ISO\boot\etfsboot.com c:\winpe\ISO c:\universitybase.iso 
  
  
When I try and boot from universitybase.iso I get  the following error: 
  
FILE: \windows\system32\boot\winload.exe 
  
Status: 0xc0000001 
  
Info: The selected entry could not be loaded because the applications is missing or corrupt 
  
From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv [ <mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU> mailto:SECURITY () 
LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of Casey R DeBord
Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 2010 2:25 PM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Converting WIM to ISO 
  

Nathan, 

I'm not sure what you mean with "Discover" and "captured", sorry If I'm totally off base.   I've created bootable winPE 
images for a cd and a thumbdrive if that is what you are asking.  If the image is small enough, you can also include 
that image onto the same cd/dvd or thumbdrive without "discovering" anything over a network connection. 

Here is an excerpt I wrote for my Technology Coordinators here on campus.  Hopefully it will help you: 

While you were in c:\winpe you might have also noticed another folder named “ISO”. This is where we can make that WIM 
file into something we can use. Inside the c:\winpe\iso folder is a file called boot.wim. Rename it to boot.old and 
move it out of there. This boot.wim file is a backup of the default WinPE image we just edited. Now, copy the winpe.wim 
file from c:\winpe into c:\winpe\iso and rename it to boot.wim.

Now we can use our iso creating tool to make use of edited boot.wim file.

Oscdimg –n –h –bc:\winpe\etfsboot.com c:\winpe\iso c:\winpe\winpe.iso

This command tells etfsboot.com to find the boot.wim file and create an iso out of it. The –n allows for longer 
filenames, the –h allows it to see hidden files, and the –b makes it bootable. After this process completes, you’ll 
have a bootable iso file named winpe.iso. Burn this image to CD to make a bootable WinPE disc.

I have taken it a step further and placed the contents of that iso onto a thumbdrive to allow me to quickly edit the 
contents without being forced to burn cd’s. The final ISO will be about 200mb. 

If you're ask about a live os where you can simply boot into the OS, I'm not sure that is possible.  At least I haven't 
done it. 

_______________________________
Casey DeBord
Systems Administrator, ITS
OTOL #214B
Phone: 308.865.8792
Fax: 308.865.8941 


From: 

"Gibson, Nathan J. (HSC)" <Nathan-Gibson () OUHSC EDU> 


To: 

SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU 


Date: 

02/02/2010 01:48 PM 


Subject: 

[SECURITY] Converting WIM to ISO 


Sent by: 

The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>

  

 

  _____  





We are using Windows Deployment Server to deploy base images across campus.  I some cases I need to have the base image 
installed on devices not directly connected to our network.  I would like to take this base image and convert it into 
an ISO. I am having a little trouble figuring out how to do this. 
 
1.       Basically I need to convert a .WIM capture image to a bootable .ISO 
 
I some documentation at Microsoft using PETools in the AIK; however, it appears to be limited to creating ISO’s of 
“Discover” images not “captured” images. I tried to use this documentation to create my ISO of the captured image but 
it doesn’t work. 
 
I’m reaching out for some help, if anybody has some information on how to accomplish this task, I would be grateful. 
 
V/R, 
 
GIBBY
_____________________________ 
Nathan J. Gibson, MsIA, CISSP, CISM,CCNA, MCSA
Sr. IT Analyst
Infrastructure Services
The University of Oklahoma HSC 
voice: 405.271.2644 x50340
fax:    405.271.2181 
Feedback?  Email comments to  <mailto:shad-steward () ouhsc edu?subject=Feedback%20for%20Chris%20Duree> Shad Steward 
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