Creating and deploying images using WAIK and imagex

Before beginning with the image creation or deployment – please download the WAIK tools from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=C7D4BC6D-15F3-4284-9123-679830D629F2&displaylang=en) and create either a bootable DVD or bootable USB stick which contains imagex. For this please follow the documentation that comes with the WAIK tools.

Preparation

Please follow the preparation steps for both – image creation and image deployment as you’ll need to have a working network connection.

Setting up a DHCP server

You can skip this step if you have a DHCP server running in your network.

1. Create a new dialup connection – the settings like number, etc. are not important.
2. Open the settings of the created dialup connection and enable internet sharing for the local network adapter which will be connected with your target device.
3. Check the IP-address of the local network adapter – it should be 192.168.0.1

Create a network share

On your development machine set up a network share where the image will be located. Please make sure you can access the network share from another pc and that you have write access to this share.

Mapping a network drive in Windows PE

1. Boot the target machine from the previous created media.
2. In the command prompt type ipconfig to check if the pc has a valid ip address. You can use ping (e.g. ping 192.168.0.1) to test if the connection to the development pc works.
3. Map a network drive to your development pc.
   net use N: \<IP-Address><Sharename> [/User:<pcname><username> <Password>]

   Sample
   net use N: \192.168.0.1images /User:devmachineadministrator admin

Create an image

To create an image we will use the imagex tool which comes with the WAIK tools. For more information on imagex please have a look on Microsoft Technet http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc722145.aspx

1. Type the following command
   imagex /capture C: N:image.wmi “Master image”

   You can also use additional paramters such as /compress to compress the image. For additional arguments please type imagex /?

Deploy an image

Before we will deploy the image we will prepare the target disk to make sure that the image can boot after the deployment.

Preparing the target disk

1. Run diskpart and type the following commands
   LIST DISK
   
   

   DISKPART> list disk

     Disk ###  Status      Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
     ——–  ———-  ——-  ——-  —  —
     Disk 0    Online       149 GB      0 B
     Disk 1    Online       149 GB      0 B

Use this command to find out the disk id of the disk that should be used as target.

SELECT DISK 0  (instead of 0 use the appropriate disk id of your target disk)
CLEAN   (this will remove all partitions on the target disk)
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY  (this creates a primary partition on the target disk)
ACTIVE (set the previous created partition active)
ASSIGN LETTER = C (assign the drive letter C)
FORMAT FS=NTFS QUICK (do a quick ntfs format)
EXIT (quick diskpart)

Deploy the image

1. Run the following command to deploy the image from the network share
   imagex /apply n:image.wim 1 c:
2. Reboot your machine – it should now boot from the image properly.