Step-by-Step Guide for System Builders

Express Deployment
PC Essentials

indows 7 Office 2010 Windows Live Essentials Bing Bar Windows 7 SP1 Internet Explorer 9 Update Security Essentials Skype

Version 1.2.4.0 Copyright 2012 Microsoft Corporation

Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 4 The three focus areas of the Express Deployment Tool ....................................................................... 4 System Requirements ............................................................................................................................... 6 Recommended operating system and hardware requirements for technician PC .............................. 6 Minimum operating system and hardware requirements for technician PC ....................................... 6 Hardware recommendations for technician PC.................................................................................... 6 Framework Requirements and Scope ....................................................................................................... 6 Setup and Installation ............................................................................................................................... 7 Language Selection ............................................................................................................................... 7 Express Deployment Overview ..................................................................................................................... 9 Main window preview .............................................................................................................................. 9 Lets get started ........................................................................................................................................ 9 Your customizations................................................................................................................................ 14 Add software ........................................................................................................................................... 17 Add Additional Software ..................................................................................................................... 18 Adding Windows Live .......................................................................................................................... 21 Adding Microsoft Office 2010 ............................................................................................................. 22 Add Microsoft Security Essentials ....................................................................................................... 23 Add Bing Bar ........................................................................................................................................ 23 Add Skype............................................................................................................................................ 24 Add Internet Explorer 9 ...................................................................................................................... 24 Add Service Pack 1 .............................................................................................................................. 26 Your deployment .................................................................................................................................... 28 Create a CD/DVD Image ...................................................................................................................... 30 Add a WDS Boot Image ....................................................................................................................... 31 Create a USB Boot Device ................................................................................................................... 31 Add Drivers.......................................................................................................................................... 33 Create my image ..................................................................................................................................... 36 Reference PC Setup..................................................................................................................................... 39 Audit Mode ................................................................................................................................................. 43 Image Capture............................................................................................................................................. 47 -2-

Image Deployment...................................................................................................................................... 50 Image Servicing ........................................................................................................................................... 55 DISMGUI Panel ........................................................................................................................................ 56 Modes of Operation ................................................................................................................................ 57 Advanced DISMGUI ................................................................................................................................. 57 Image tab ............................................................................................................................................ 58 Windows tab ....................................................................................................................................... 61 International tab ................................................................................................................................. 62 WinPE tab ............................................................................................................................................ 63 Log tab................................................................................................................................................. 64 Script tab ............................................................................................................................................. 64 Service WIM Image ................................................................................................................................. 64

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Introduction
The Express Deployment Tool (EDT) is a tool that system builders can leverage to perform three major tasks associated with Microsoft Windows customization, image consistency, and deployment environment. The EDT, however, is not a replacement for the Microsoft Windows OEM Preinstallation Kit (OPK) tools (available for download at www.microsoft.com/oem/en/downloads/Pages/windows_7_opk.aspx). Rather, it supplements those tools by providing a more efficient way to accomplish specific deployment tasks. Microsoft still recommends that users leverage the Microsoft Windows OPK tools and trainings where possible. The EDT provides a metro-style user interface to help system builder partners more easily create and deploy a complete PC image, loaded with OS and Applications. In this version you can also edit and maintain those images, with a graphical interface for DISM.

The three focus areas of the Express Deployment Tool

The EDT leverages five specific tasks to be completed. These are listed in the Task List pane on the left. The tasks are grouped into the following three focus areas: 1. Image customization and image staging on a technician PC. The first three tasks in the Task List focus on customizing Windows 7: a. Stage software, such as: Microsoft Office 2010 Windows Live Microsoft Security Essentials Bing Bar Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Internet Explorer 9 Update Other user-defined software b. Leverage the System Builder PC Essentials program. c. Introduce useful end-customer tools, such as hard drive recovery. d. Define the image properties (32-bit or 64-bit). GUI-based deployment and imaging solution. Step 4 of the Task List (your deployment) focuses on setup and networking of the deployment and Windows PE environment. You can add drivers to your image here, too. Image maintenance and servicing. Once you have created your .wim files, you can update and manage your images offline, saving time and maintaining images with updates and/or language packs with a complete graphical interface for DISM.

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In addition to the three focus areas, the EDT provides: Quick access to the Microsoft Windows OPK help files (.chm files) for extended learning. Additional OPK downloads, including Office 2010 and Windows Live (Get it Now functionality). A step-by-step guide for setup of Windows Deployment Services (WDS), which enables boot via the Preboot Execution Environment (PXE), which is how you boot a new system over a network. A step-by-step guide for the EDT.

You can reach all these help topics by clicking on the ? picture on the bottom right corner of the screen.

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System Requirements
Recommended operating system and hardware requirements for technician PC
Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2 configured as a Windows Deployment Server (step-bystep guide included in the Help menu) Windows 7 OPK tools installed Isolated network for deployment .NET framework

Minimum operating system and hardware requirements for technician PC

Windows 7 Professional with password-enabled user account Windows 7 OPK tools installed Isolated network for deployment .NET framework

Hardware recommendations for technician PC

For deployment via network, gigabit Ethernet and switches or greater are recommended If deployment is not via network, use HDD via USB 2.0 or greater Network is required for image setup from the technician PC to a reference PC

Framework Requirements and Scope

Networked technician PC Available and networked reference PC

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Setup and Installation

As explained in the introduction, the EDT leverages the Microsoft Windows OPK (available for download at www.microsoft.com/oem/en/downloads/Pages/windows_7_opk.aspx). Both the Windows OPK and the EDT need to be installed on the technician PC. You must run the EDT as an administrator. Right-click the EDT desktop shortcut. Select Properties, then click the Compatibility tab. Select Run this program as an administrator, and click OK.

The user profile used on the technician PC needs to be password protected in order to ensure that networking functions are correctly performed. Launch the EDT from either the desktop shortcut or the All Programs menu.

Language Selection

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Select the language you require and click OK. This will be asked only the first time, you then will be presented with the main screen of EDT.

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Express Deployment Overview

In order to facilitate image creation and deployment, the EDT presents five sequential tasks listed in the left side of the Main Window. The order of these tasks indicates the desired order of completion, since some steps depend on others. Each of these five tasks will be covered in detail below. Once all tasks have been completed correctly, you will continue by setting up the reference PC.

Main window preview

Task List and status of image staging setup and deployment tools

Computer name and user name of logged-in user

Twitter feed from #oempartner

Help links

EDT and OPC notices about alerts, notifications and updates

WIM files under \EDT_OPKTools\Images for maintenance with DISMGUI

Lets get started

Initial Setup creates a folder structure on the drive you select. Youll need the DVDs of the Windows versions you select among Windows 7 x86 (32-bit), Windows 7 x64 (64-bit), Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit) and Windows Small Server Essentials, to be copied to this folder structure. Please be aware that during this process, the following three EDT subdirectories are shared, with access granted to all users: Images (for storage and reading of .wim files) Windows (shared for the reference PC installation; customizations are built into this folder) Add_Software (shared for the reference PC installation; all staged software is staged here)

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Click the lets get started option on the left and select the drive you will be using from the list. Then click Next >. A root directory called EDT_OPKTools will be created on the drive you selected. Software, scripts, and tools required for deployment will be stored in this folder. Then you will be prompted on the Windows Operating Systems youll be working with.

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Set the checkboxes of the ones you choose. Then click Next >. You will now be prompted about the Server Operating Systems you would like to include.

Again, mark the checkboxes you wish. Then click Next >. A summary screen will be displayed with your selections. If this reflects what you wanted, click on Done, else you can Cancel this process anytime and start again by clicking the first step from the left.

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When you click on Done, the copy progress will start and youll be prompted on the disks.

For each of the Windows versions you choose you will be asked to indicate the drive in which the DVD is inserted. Select the drive and click on Save.

A message will indicate that the file copy is in progress.

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Then it will continue prompting for the Server DVDs in case you selected some. Again, click on Save. When the file copy from the Windows OS finishes, a message is displayed to indicate the operation was successful.

Once these copying proceedures finish, the item in the task list will be colored.

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Your customizations
In this step you will enter information related with OEM and OOBE, configure favorites for Internet Explorer and set some system settings.

In this first tab type the required company information and supply a logo (.bmp file,120 x 120 pixels). Required fields are indicated with an asterisc. Manufacturers Name will then be displayed in the top right corner of the main screen. Then click Next >.

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Here you must complete some information and logos for OOBE and Performance. When finished click Next > again.

In this tab you will find a place to define the home page and the names and URLs for your own Favorites. If you dont choose any home page, it will be defaulted to the Bing Bar home (http://syb.msn.com). To go on click Next >.

Select the preferred values for Input Locale, UI Language, and User Locale (should match the language pack you chose previously).

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The most important part here is the OS selection. This field will be filled in with the Windows Versions you selected in the first step. The OS selected here will be the one to be included in the image in this configuration. If you set the Include Recovery Partition check box, Windows will install on one partition, and allocate 10 gigabytes of the hard drive as the recovery partition. The recovery partition is finalized and setup after the reference PC setup process. If you dont, Windows will install on one partition with no System Reserve partition. After clicking Next > you will see the summary tab.

If you find everything ok, click Done. This second step will be colored after that.

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Add software

In this section you will be able to add Microsoft applications and updates by checking or unchecking the software items displayed. The PC Essentials program brings together a collection of Microsoft software and services as a valuable offering for OEMs to preinstall on systems designed for consumers and small businesses. It includes Windows Live, Bing Bar, Office 2010, and browser defaults as per the PC Essentials Deployment Guide for System Builders. Enabling PC Essentials will also enable and enforce hard drive recovery. Please review the Help section about recovery hard drive setup, capture, and deployment. If Bing Bar is selected, you will be able to see the This PC will be sold in China checkbox to indicate if special setting should be used in the search scope according to that country law. If you set the Japan checkbox, Office will be installed with the no starter switch. In the last step you will be prompted on the software bits.

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If you need to download some OPK software, you can click on the Get it now button for a list of links to be presented. If you click on any name here the browser will open in the appropriate download location from Microsoft. To close this popup you can click on Close. You can click on Next > or over the following tab to continue.

Add Additional Software

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You can add the third-party software you nedd for your installation. This process is done on demand as you click on the Add button. Then a folder browse dialog is presented for you to select the binary file to lauch this software installation.

Once you have located the software, type a software name and any applicable command line switches, then click Save.

That will allow to you add some other software.

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When you are done click Next > and you will see the summary of the options selected.

When you click on Done the software bits will be prompted. Follows now a description of each software.

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Adding Windows Live

Select the drive or folder where the Windows Live product bits are located. Click OK.

Select the language you require from the list. The default command line switches are presented. If you have any unique settings, which you can find in the Windows Live OPK documentation, type them here. If you selected PC Essentials option, that will overwrite any switches you type here.Click Save.

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Everytime a copy process is performed, you will see a message. The process continues automatically, with the following software, youll only need some patience.

Adding Microsoft Office 2010

Select the physical or virtual optical DVD drive that contains the Office 2010 media and click Save.

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Add Microsoft Security Essentials

Select the folder location or DVD drive in which the Microsoft Security Essentials OPK is located. Click OK.

Add Bing Bar

Select the folder or DVD drive location of the Bing Bar OPK and click OK.

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Add Skype

Select the drive or folder where the Skype product bits are located. Click Save.

Add Internet Explorer 9

Browse to the location of your Internet Explorer 9 (32bits) media, then click Next >. -24-

Select the language you would like to use from the list and click Save.

When prompted again, insert the 64-bit Internet Explorer 9 media and select the drive, then click Next >.

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Add Service Pack 1

Browse to the location of your Service Pack 1 media, then click OK. After all this software copy process, a message appears to indicate successful completion.

If you cancel any software, the checkbox for it will be automatically unchecked. You can come back to this step and add it later. If you deselect a checkbox, the files will be deleted from the -26-

EDT_OPKTools\Add_Software folder. If you make a mistake on the CD/DVD you are inserting, you will be advised to change it until you present the correct disk.

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Your deployment
In this step youll create the Windows Preinstallation Environment (Win PE) image with networking support for the technician PC. Remember that the PC needs to belong to an isolated network and have a password-protected user profile.

Type the Account Password and click Generate WinPE Deployment. This process will now create WinPE with the Windows 7 version of the Rapid Deployment Script.

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The Rapid Deployment Script is a dynamic, menu-based, networkable version of WinPE. All networking is predetermined in the Create WinPE and RDM Image process. This menu system allows users to perform basic operations such as formatting, deploying, and capturing images, and fully supports capture and deployment of HDD recovery-based images.

You can now use the WinPE image to quickly and easily boot the reference PCs. Depending on your environment, there are three different boot methods: via CD/DVD, Windows Deployment Server (WDS), or USB. Those setup boot method options as well as the Add Drivers facility will be enabled only after generating the WinPE image.

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If you come back to this step from the task list, you will see now the icons colored.

Create a CD/DVD Image

CD/DVD boot which is represented by a optical disk icon, creates a file called Boot_WinPE.iso in the \EDT_OPKtools folder. If this DOS process is completed successfully you will see a message.

In Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, burn this file to a CD or DVD disk by right-clicking on the file and selecting Burn disc image.

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Add a WDS Boot Image

To set up a server as a WDS Server, click the ? icon, on the first tab select Step by Step Guide to setup Windows Server 2008 R2 with WDS, and follow the steps. By clicking on the server icon you will add the WinPE image as a boot image in the WDS menu. However, it is still recommended to use WDS to manage boot images in WDS. If the WDS process is not running, an error will be displayed.

Create a USB Boot Device

Insert a removable device, such as a USB drive, into the appropriate slot on the technician PC and then click on the USB icon to create the Boot Image on USB Drive. Select the removable disk drive and click Next >.

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Please note: this operation deletes all information from the drive.

Click Yes to continue. All information on the device will be deleted!

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If a disk format is required, you may need to do the process twice to see the files in your flash disk.

Add Drivers
From the deployment step you will also be able to add drivers. To do that, click Next >on the WinPE tab or go

directly to the second tab. You will see here the drivers you already added (empty list the first time) and a button to Add Drivers to WinPE. Click on it.

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You will be prompted to select the drive or folder where an .inf file with information on the drivers exists. If no .inf files exist on the folder you selected, you will see an error message.

Else, you will proceed with the selection of the drivers contained in that .inf file.

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Select the drivers you with to install and click Next >.

This DOS process might take some time since it needs to mount the image, add the drivers and save the changes, and then unmount the image. After it you will see a message of completion.

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And if you return to this tab the next time, you will see the drivers you already added.

Create my image
This final part of the process locks down all changes and prepares the image for creation.

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Follow the instructions now to boot the reference PC and deploy the reference PC image creation process. You will see then all the steps completed and colored.

If after deploying your image and installing it onto a reference computer you want to start all over again and prepare another image, maybe with a different set of software and OEM options, you can reset your environment by refering to the first step, in the File Store tab.

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The Reset All button will clean all the folders under \EDT_OPKTools, except for the Image folder. This will

also clean the configuration youve done, so it would be like a fresh start.

If you are sure this is something you want to do, click Yes on the confirmation dialog. Else, cancel the cleanup by clicking No.

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Reference PC Setup
The reference PC is the system onto which you will deploy your customized image, and from which youll capture the image for deployment to other machines. Use Windows Preinstallation Environment (Win PE) to deploy the customized image. Win PE is a lightweight operating system used to boot your PC and provide an interface that can be used to deploy a Windows image. Before booting into Win PE, ensure that you have a network connection between your technician PC with Express Deployment and the reference PC. This can easily be achieved by connecting both to a switch using a network cable. To begin, boot your system using the bootable media you made in the previous step.

Once prompted, type Y.

Click OK.

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Click OK.

Type 10 in the Choose an option text box and click OK. If you are confident with installing Windows 7, you can skip to the Audit Mode section.

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Select the required language, time and currency format, and keyboard or input method and click Next.

Select the operating system you want to install and click Next.

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Select the I accept the license terms check box and click Next.

Wait for the installation to finish. Your system may restart during this process. This is normal.

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Audit Mode
Once the installation is complete, your computer will boot into audit mode and display a command window on the desktop. This is a script that will install any extra software you chose when creating your image.

Click inside the command box. Press any key and wait for the script to finish executing.

For Office, click inside the command box again. Press any key and wait for the script to finish executing. This process will repeat for all of the software you selected to add to the image in the second task.

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Windows Live Example: Click inside the command box. Press any key and wait for the script to finish executing.

Security Essentials Example: Click inside the command box. Press any key and wait for the script to finish executing.

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Bing Bar Example: Click inside the command box. Press any key and wait for the script to finish executing.

Once all additional software has been installed, a final script will run to clean up the image. Again, click inside the command box and press any key. Wait for the script to finish executing.

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If you require a recovery partition, double click the Setup_Recovery desktop shortcut and follow the prompt. If not, in the System Cleanup Action list in the System Preparation Tool window, select Enter System Out-Of-Box-Experience (OOBE), and then select the Generalize check box. In the Shutdown Options list, select Reboot and click OK.

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Image Capture
To capture the image you have created, use your bootable media to boot into WinPE on the machine that has the image you want to capture.

Type 5 in the Choose an option text box and click OK.

Click OK.

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Choose the partition you want to capture by typing its option number in the text box. Click OK.

Click OK.

Choose your technician PC by typing the corresponding number in the text box. Click OK.

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Type the WIM file name in the text box.

Type the backup label name in the text box.

Wait for the WIM to capture.

Repeat these steps for each of your partitions by typing 5 in the text box and clicking OK. Your image is now captured.

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Image Deployment
To deploy the image, use your bootable media to boot into WinPE on the target machine.

Youll need to format the hard disk on the target PC. Type 2 in the Choose an option text box.

Confirm that you wish to format the disk by clicking OK.

Confirm whether or not you want to create a system partition by clicking Yes or No.

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Type the number of partitions you want to create in the text box.

Type the size, in gigabytes, of your partition in the text box.

Type the name of your partition in the text box.

Give your partition a drive letter by typing the letter in the text box. Repeat these steps for each of your other partitions.

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If you have multiple partitions, choose option 3. If you have a single partition, choose option 4. To test whether your deployment has been successful, deploy your last partition using option 4, which will automatically boot into OOBE.

Confirm that you want to proceed by clicking OK.

Select the partition you want to deploy by typing the option number assigned to it in the text box.

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Select the image you want to deploy by typing the option number assigned to it in the text box.

The .wim file will now deploy. Repeat these steps for each of your partitions, using option 4 from the menu to deploy your final WIM. Once the final WIM has been deployed, the system will reboot into OOBE.

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You have now successfully deployed your customized image.

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Image Servicing
Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM.exe) installs, uninstalls, configures, and updates the features and packages in offline Windows images and offline Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) images. The commands and options that are available for servicing an image depend on which Windows operating system you are servicing, and whether the image is offline or a running operating system. All commands work on an offline Windows image. Subsets of the commands are available for servicing a running operating system. DISM.exe is a console tool which is very powerful (image mounting and servicing in the same place) but its not user friendly since you need to remember all options and also some parameters are not documented in help. DISMGUI is a Graphical User Interface for DISM that simplifies every day DISM tasks. This tool is used only to combine parameters and call standard DISM.exe to process them. All contract parameters are preloaded automatically, you only have to use dropdown lists or checkboxes to browse. With this UI tool, you dont need to keep in memory all details of DISM syntax, and you can also use it to prepare DISM commands to insert into your scripts. You can access DISMGUI using the right panel buttons and list of images in EDT.

DISM.exe

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DismGui

DISMGUI Panel
In the main screen of EDT, on the right side, you can see the DISMGUI launch alternatives.

Given the drive you selected in the lets get started step, the available image list will be populated with the .WIM files in the folder \EDT_OPKTools\Images. As long as you place images into that folder, you can refresh the list and do servicing for them. This folder wont be deleted in any cleanup process, so its a safe place to save your images. We have two buttons in this panel: Service WIM Image and Advanced DismGui. The Service WIM Image is a simpler version of image servicing, and will work by mounting the image you select from the list. If no image is selected that button will be disabled. Advanced DismGui is the option for advanced users where you can choose different modes of operations. If an image is selected the tool will suggest to work on it by mounting it, but you can still change that action. -56-

Modes of Operation
You can work with images in three ways: Using the online image Using an offline image Mounting an image

If you choose to use the online image youll be servicing an image of the running operating system. With an offline image you must choose the folder in which the image was previously mounted, so that it is available offline as a flat file structure. And the last option will be to choose a .WIM file and a mount folder to mount the image and service it. To service an offline Windows image, you must first mount the image. You can use Windows image (WIM) commands and arguments to mount a WIM image for servicing and management. You can also use these commands to list the indexes or verify the architecture for the image you are mounting. After you update the image, you must unmount it and either commit or discard the changes you have made. When you run commands they can be processed in internal windows or external command shell. Some slow commands (mount/unmount/load image info) could take up to 15 minutes. You might want to run them in the original shell out of the graphic interface. Anyway you will se a progress bar in the bottom of the DISMGUI window. In the next sections well be using the option to mount an image to continue with the description, since the available options are near the same for all the modes.

Advanced DISMGUI
After selecting an image and clicking on the button for Advanced DismGui you will be able to mount the image to operate on it. This is the expert mode where you will be able to see up to six tabs with options and commands.

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Image tab

For the mount operation to be possible, the mount path is mandatory. That will indicate where in your file structure you want the image to be expanded. Then you can click on Mount and you will see the progress of the image mount. After completion you will see a success message on the status bar.

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When mounted, a different set of operations became available and the tool loads information about the image and available parameters. There are buttons to save changes, save and unmount the image or discard the changes and unmount the image. In case of a reboot of the computer, the system may lose its bindings between the image file and the mount folder, then a Remount will be necessary. When thats the case, the system will detect it and will enable the corresponding button. The Get WIM file info and Get WIM image info buttons will be available while an image is selected, and they give you information about the WIM file and the image within it, even when the image is not mounted. They will display the DISM command on the Script tab and the results on the Log tab.

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The Get mounted info button is global, and is always available to see the information of the images mounted currently in the system.

This will display a list of the images that has been mounted, the place where they are mounted, the mode (read/write) and its status. The Cleanup mounted WIM button will delete all of the resources associated with a mounted WIM image that has been abandoned. This command will not unmount currently mounted images, nor will it delete images that can be remounted. This command just executed but doesnt display anything in the Log tab. Windows tab This tab can be used to upgrade image SKU, to apply an unattend file and to manage drivers, packages and features.

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The content of these dropdowns will display all the list of possibilities for each case. If you use them with the online image, you will see the full list of your OS. International tab In this tab reside all the settings for languages, time zone and locales. The current values show settings in the image (the information collected by DISM). You wont be able to change the language if your image doesnt support so or doesnt have the language in it. Changing a value on the screen initiated DISM command to setup the new value into the image.

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WinPE tab Here youll see the options for WinPE images, thats why you need to mount a WinPE image for this tab to be available.

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Scratch space and Profiling are changed in the image by changing the value on the screen. The button Get WinPE info also displays some information on the Log tab.

Log tab As it was described, the log tab is used to display the command line results from DISM.exe. Every command output is delimited by dashes with command execution time. Also you can clear the log and go to the original dism.log file to see any logged events. Script tab You can check all executed scripts here.

Service WIM Image

Service WIM Image will give you the basic commands on the selected image. It would be like operating in the Advanced mode, but with a mounted image. That is, you dont have the ability to choose among the modes of operations online, offline or mounted. This mode doesnt have the Image and WinPE tabs, and you wont be able to manage features.

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