Installing Windows: Updating Drivers for Boot.WIM and Install.WIM

We have a number of clients that are going to be on Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit for the foreseeable future.
Most, if not all, of the laptops we are deploying today require a few BIOS tweaks to turn off uEFI and SecureBoot prior to beginning the setup process.
Once that is done, the laptops we are deploying today have wired and wireless network, chipsets, and USB 3 ports that have no drivers in the Windows 7 Boot.WIM or Install.WIM files. So, we would be left stranded when trying to deploy an operating system (OS) via flash!
Given the amount of application updates most of our clients have we decided to avoid using MDT or other imaging software to deploy a new laptop. The time savings would be negligible since we’d be stuck running all of the application updates or new installs post OS deployment anyway.
Also, when installing an operating system via USB 3 flash drive with decent read speeds it only takes a few minutes to get through the base OS install. Windows 10 can have an entire OS install done in a few minutes.
The following instructions assume the files have already been extracted to a bootable flash drive to use for installing an OS on a new machine.
Here’s a simple step-by-step for updating the drivers for a Windows 7 Professional Install.WIM:

1. Dism /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:D:\sources\install.wim
• Where D: = the flash drive letter
2. Dism /Mount-Wim /WimFile:D:\sources\install.wim /Name:"Windows 7 PROFESSIONAL" /MountDir:C:\Mount
• Change C: to another drive/partition if required
• NOTE: Do not browse the contents of this folder!
3. Dism /Image:L:\mount /Add-Driver /Driver:C:\Mount_Driver /Recurse
• Again, change C: to the required drive letter
• We extract all drivers to be installed or updated to this folder
4. Dism /unmount-Wim /mountdir:L:\mount /commit
• This step will commit all of the changes to the .WIM file
• NOTE: Make sure there are _no_ Windows/File Explorer, CMD, or PowerShell sessions sitting in the C:\Mount folder or the dismount will fail!
5. Dism /unmount-Wim /mountdir:L:\mount /Discard
1. Run this command to dismount the .WIM

The following is the process for updating the WinPE Boot.WIM:

1. Dism /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:D:\sources\boot.wim
2. Dism /Mount-Wim /WimFile:D:\sources\boot.wim /Name:"Microsoft Windows Setup (x64)" /MountDir:C:\Mount
3. Dism /Image:C:\mount /Add-Driver /Driver:C:\Mount_Driver /Recurse
4. Dism /unmount-Wim /mountdir:C:\mount /commit

The above process can be used to install the newest RAID driver into a Windows Server Boot.WIM and Install.WIM to facilitate a smoother install via flash drive.
Currently, we are using Kingston DTR3.0 G2 16GB flash drives as they have good read and decent write speeds. Please feel free to comment with your suggestions on reasonably priced 16GB and 32GB USB 3 flash drives that have good read and write speeds.
Good to us is ~75MB/Second read and ~35MB/Second write.
Thanks for reading! :)
Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
Our Cloud Service

Bootable USB: Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool

In a conversation about creating a bootable USB flash drive the following tool was mentioned:

• Microsoft Store: Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool.

Once we download and install the tool we are good to go.

When we run the tool we must choose our source ISO.

After choosing our Windows 7 Enterprise x64 ISO file in the step above we can choose our destination:

We will use the 8 GB OCZ Rally2 Turbo USB flash drive that we used for yesterday’s post on creating a bootable USB flash drive.

Once we click the Begin copying button the following happens:

• The USB flash drive gets formatted.

• It then copies the OS contents onto the drive.

 

Once the process has completed our 8 GB USB flash drive looks like this in our Windows 7 Disk Management console:

It is formatted NTFS and set to Active so it is indeed good to go!

Hat Tip: Les Connor SBS MVP (Bing Search)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Create A Bootable USB Flash Drive Larger Than 4 GB

With the advent of larger and larger OS installs that come on dual layer DVDs (8 GB+), we need to revise our previous post methodology for these new OS files on a bootable USB flash drive.

• Previous Blog Post: Windows Vista - Using the DiskPart Command to Create a Bootable USB Flash Drive

The methodology we have been using for USB flash drives with large OS install files has been the following (Assume [Enter] after each command line):

1. Start –> Diskpart (type in search)
2. Right click on Diskpart and Run As Administrator
3. Click Continue if prompted by UAC.
4. List Disk
5. Select Disk 3 (use whatever number in place of “3”)
6. Clean
7. Create Partition Primary
8. Select Partition 1
9. Format FS=NTFS Quick
• Make sure to have the Quick switch or it will take _a long_ time!
10. Active
11. Assign
12. Exit

Now, we can run the above commands using their abbreviations:

1. Lis Dis
2. Sel Dis 3
3. Clean
4. Cre Par Pri
5. Sel Par 1
6. Format FS=NTFS Quick
7. Act
8. Ass
9. Exit

The following is a screenshot of the above command set being used to format an 8 GB OCZ Rally2 Turbo USB flash drive:

Once done we can copy the OS files off of its ISO using Virtual-Clone Drive (SlySoft Site) to mount that ISO with a drive letter in Windows.

This method requires Windows Vista, Windows 7, or server OS with the same code base or newer.

Note that there is no requirement to edit the Boot Configuration Database at all (BCD). We have been using this method for a while now to install beta OSs in our lab here without an issue.

We sometimes drop a Drivers folder on the USB flash drive too. As a just-in-case we add the Everyone NFTS group and give it FULL permissions to the USB flash drive after running the above steps.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Windows 7 – Enable Edition Choosing And Install From USB Flash Drive + Caveat

It looks as though we have taken a step back when it comes to the version of the Windows desktop OS on the DVD:

It seems the days of having the various versions of the OS on the same DVD are gone. The above screenshot was taken of the TechNet portal we are using to download the Windows 7 RTM versions.

Server 2008 R2 does not show up in our TechNet downloads portal yet. So, we will grab those ISOs at a later date.

We are going to download the required Ultimate and Professional x86 and x64 versions for us to use for VM work and such.

We will, however, be using a USB Flash drive to install the OS as a rule.

• TechNet Magazine: Tip: Use a USB Key to Install Windows 7—Even on a Netbook.

We have formatted our OCZ ATV Turbo flash drive and made it Active as per the instructions above. We then copied the contents of a Windows 7 Ultimate x64 DVD onto the flash drive.

From there, we will edit the content on the USB flash drive to allow us to install the OS edition we need:

• My Digital Life: How to Select Any Edition or Version (SKU) of Windows 7 to Install From Single Edition DVD Disc Media or ISO.

The file that needs to be deleted, ei.cfg, is found in the \Sources\ folder according to Method 1 in the above article.

Here is the content of that file found on our Windows 7 x64 flash drive:

We deleted the file and booted a machine via the USB flash drive that will have Windows 7 Ultimate x64 installed on it.

After clicking on install we were presented with the various OS Editions to choose from.

Now, one thing to keep in mind when it comes to this install methodology is the fact that the EULA on the DVD image or OS install flash drive will be from the original OS edition installed by that image.

So, if the original DVD/ISO used to delete the ei.cfg file was Windows 7 Ultimate x64, then the EULA placed on that installed system will be the Windows 7 Ultimate EULA.

Since it looks like there will be some significant differences in the EULA between editions again, the reasoning behind the multiple OS DVDs becomes clear.

Once we confirm that the EULAs are indeed different for each OS edition, we will be using a dedicated flash drive for each edition to honour the EULA.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

Product Review: OCZ ATV Turbo Flash Drive

When a business depends on a system or component's horsepower to accomplish things faster to improve efficiency and cost effectiveness, one looks for items that can help along those lines.

For 3DS Max (3D Studio Max), more cores plus RAM plus GHz means more frames rendered per minute. Having more cores across the corporate rendering "farm" means more frames rendered as well.

As we are delving into the creation, management, and deployment of Windows Vista WIM images via network share, we need to have a quick device to boot the system with since we have not graduated to Windows Deployment Services yet.

Using a network share based deployment will be the environment we will be working with at our smaller client sites where server transitions may not be as frequent as the larger ones.

So far, we have used an 8GB Transcend (JF V10) which had dismal performance. We did not keep this one too long.

The 1GB Kingston Elite Pro did pretty good. It managed to boot the WinPE environment is a respectable amount of time.

We ended up bringing in an 8GB and a couple of 4GB OCZ ATV Turbo flash drives to test out their ability to boot WinPE quicker.

We were pleasantly surprised. They are fast!

The online reviews were accurate. They definitely can pull their own weight when it comes to bringing the WinPE environment up at least 20-30% faster than the Kingston Elite Pro did!

This speed improvement will save our client's money where we will be required to be on-site for their deployments. It will also save us a lot of time for our training lab deployments.

They will also be our Technician's Thumb Drive and for booting DOS for BIOS updates and the like.

Links:

• Virtual-Hideout.net: OCZ ATV Turbo Review
• OCZ Site (Site down at the time of this writing)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

Windows Vista - Multi-partition Booting with Linux? Why?

With the advent of extremely fast USB flash drives and the ability to set them as Active, one cannot help but figure out that there really is no longer a need to have multi-boot partitions on a single hard drive.

Need to run Ubuntu Linux? Reboot to that flash drive and away you go: Ubuntu: How to install Ubuntu Linux on a flash drive.

Or, one could have an eSATA or USB external hard drive for the same purpose.

One really does not need to mess around with multiple partitions or have dedicated internal hard drives for a particular flavour OS anymore.

Another good information site: Pen Drive Linux.

Port 25: Using Vista's Boot Manager to Boot Linux and Dual Booting with BitLocker Protection with TPM Support.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

Windows Vista - Using the DiskPart Command to Create a Bootable USB Flash Drive

One of the neat additions to the DiskPart command in Windows Vista is the ability to work directly with USB flash drives.

Plug a flash drive into an XP box, run diskpart from the command prompt and:

• list disk [Enter]

One will not see the flash drive listed. On Windows Vista though, we do see it listed and can work with it.

Because of that, we now have a method of creating a bootable USB Flash drive with very little grief for our WinPE environment.

The previous method still could still be used: System Builder Tip: Creating a Bootable USB Drive (previous blog post).

Here is the process:

• On a Vista system plug in the USB flash drive to an available USB port (ReadyBoost compatible is best)
• Start-->diskpart [Enter] (UAC Prompt)
• list disk (USB flash drive will show in the list - Disk 1 for this example)
• sel disk 1
• clean
• create par primary
• sel par 1
• act
• format fs=fat32 quick (note that USB HDDs will need to be NTFS)
• assign
• exit

A screenshot of the process:

Setup of 2GB Flash Drive for WinPE Boot

We now have an active partition formatted with the FAT32 files system on the USB Flash drive.

From there we can copy the DOS system files onto it for the minimal memory setup required by a BIOS update, or we can copy the WinPE boot files and WinPE boot image onto it to boot to WinPE.

Things just got a little simpler. :)

UPDATE 2010-02-04: Added the "Assign" and "Quick" to the above steps. One to get the drive letter and the other to avoid a long wait for the format.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

System Builder Tip: Creating a Bootable USB Drive

UPDATE 2011-05-27: Create A Bootable USB Flash Drive Larger Than 4 GB. This is the up to date method that we use now.

Normally we would hunt for the HP Windows-based Format Utility for HP Drive Key or DiskOnKey USB Device (HP has killed the link - Bay Wolf has a copy of the utility available for download). After downloading, creating a floppy boot disk, one could format a USB flash drive to boot from.

That is the method we have been using to date.

The following method, as authored by Marwan Shaher is another method that was pointed to by a support page on Intel's site. It utilizes FDisk and Format.com to create the bootable drive by essentially using the USB Flash disk as the only drive attached to the system, thus mimicing a fixed disk. Excellent method.

Marwan Shaher's original Web page: Bootable USB Drive.

Here is his method:

• A computer with a BIOS that allows for booting from a USB port.

I used a Dell Optiplex GX260 that has a Phoenix ROM BIOS Plus version 1.10 revision A05.

• A Bootable floppy disk or CD.

I used a Windows 98 bootable CD. For those who have Dell systems, you can also use the bootable Dell Optiplex Resource CD that is used to reinstall your system with Windows 98.

• Utilities with the ability to create a master boot record, create partitions, set active partitions, and format and transfer boot files to the active partition

I used the DOS FDISK and FORMAT that are on the Windows 98 CD.

• Of course, the USB drive that you want to make bootable

I used a 256MB SanDisk Cruzer Mini USB Flash Drive.

Directions

1. Make the USB drive the first in the drive sequence.
   • Why?? fdisk does not allow for a partition to be set as ACTIVE (bootable) unless it is the first drive. It is most likely that your hard drive(s) is set as the first drive. This needs to be changed.
   • How?? Setting your USB drive to be the first in the drive sequence can be done by following ONE of the methods below. No matter which method you follow, the computer MUST be booted with the USB drive plugged in into the computer. Take a note of how the options that you are about to change were set before, as they will need to be changed back later.
     
   • Method # 1. BIOS drive sequence option.
     Depending on your BIOS, there may be an option to change the drive sequence. On mine, there was an option labeled "Hard-Disk Drive Sequence". If your BIOS has this or a similar option, make sure you change the sequence so that the USB Drive is listed first.
   • Method # 2. Disabling other hard drives.
     Again, this is done from the BIOS. Different BIOS's may have different options to disable the hard drive. On mine, the system had just one hard drive. I changed the option labeled "Primary Drive 0" to "OFF".
   • Method # 3. Unplugging the hard drives.
     If your BIOS doesn't have an option to change the drive sequence or to turn off the hard drive, you can turn off your computer and unplug your hard drive(s). Make sure you know what you are doing here. Opening your computer case may result in voiding your computer warranty if you have one.
2. Boot the computer from the boot floppy/CD into the command prompt with the USB Drive plugged in.
3. Run fdisk
4. Use fdisk's "Set Active Partition" (option 2) to set the primary partition on the USB Drive to ACTIVE.
   This step assumes that a primary partition already exists on the USB Drive. If this is not the case, use fdisk to create one. As noted in step # 1, fdisk will not allow for setting the the partition to ACTIVE unless the drive the partition is on is the FIRST in the drive sequence.
5. Exit fdisk.
6. Reboot the computer from boot floppy/CD into the command prompt with the USB Drive plugged in.
7. At the command prompt enter the following command: dir c:
   This step is just to verify that the C: drive is actually the primary partition on the USB Drive. Regardless of the result that the command generates whether it be a listing of files or an error message, what is important here is to make sure that the size of the primary partition on the USB Drive is roughly equal to the sum of the empty space and the used space.
8. Format and copy the boot files to the primary partition.
   At the command prompt, from the directory where FORMAT.COM is located, enter:format /s c:
9. Run fdisk /mbr
   "fdisk /mbr" writes the master boot record, in this case to the USB drive, without altering the partition table information.
10. Restart the computer and choose booting from the USB Drive. If all goes well, you should see a C:> command prompt.
11. Change the computer settings back to what they were before step # 1.

Well done sir!

UPDATE 2011-05-27: Create A Bootable USB Flash Drive Larger Than 4 GB. This is the up to date method that we use now.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

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