
WIM images can be stored on a NAS or network share for ease of backup and recovery. Upon boot-up the C:\windows\system32\startnet.cmd file is executed and can be used to automate the deployment process. It allows command line executables such as dism.exe to be executed on the host computer.

The Windows PE Environment is a lightweight version of windows that can be loaded from removable media.

#Create image of hard drive with dism Offline#
It supports compression, single instancing (only one copy of identical files are captured) and has better support for offline maintenance tasks. WIMs are the preferred method of imaging. Windows Imaging Format (WIM) is a file-based disk image format developed to help deploy Vista and subsequent versions of Windows. The Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) was designed for virtualisation and represents the physical disk. Both are available as part of the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) for Windows.ĭISM can work with two different image types. The imaging of Windows based computers can be performed with DISM (Deployment Image Servicing and Management) and a Windows PE Environment (Windows Pre-installation Environment).

