wondim

Of the two VHD's the one you should convert to WIM using GimageX is the system image. It should be much bigger than 100MB system reserved. So just take the bigger one so you don't need to do a fresh installation. If you have Windows 7 Home Premium disc, your backed up system should also be Windows 7 Home Premium. As you have a disc, you need to use programs like PowerISO or similar softwares to copy the disc file to ISO. Once you image it into ISO, you just need to go to Sources folder, and delete install.wim file and replace it in the same location with the same name "install.wim" that you created using GimageX

Have a nice trip.

You are welcome! Did it work for you now?

Source folder is obtained from Windows 7 DVD disc or downloaded Windows 7 ISO. Windows 7 ISO folder means the folders and files you get Windows 7 DVD disc or Windows 7 ISO online. Make sure that your Windows 7 DVD or ISO is the same version as your installed Windows 7. To know your windows 7 version just type "winver" without quotes. Then open the found application and see what the top say. E.g Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, etc. If you don't have Windows 7 DVD or ISO of your PCs installed version, you can download the trial version of Windows 7 from here. http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Windows-7-Download-118183.html

Thank you for the answer! I didn't know where to access StartisBack. That is why I went to C drive. If there is no information where SiB can be accessed, it would be nice if an information is given at first installation. Agreed! Microsoft is really confused in almost everything these days. I haven't seen any issue with Ex7forW8 by disabling Metro UI. Actually I got peace. So it would be nice to give that option for the users really. It would be nice to give advice on what will happen, like kind of warning with a message of things that could happen.

@Tihiy I really like your tool! I used Ex7forW8 and that is perfect too! So I want to contribute to make StartisBack even better. As I previously installed Ex7forW8, when installing StartisBack, I reverted back to Win8 explorer. Below of are list of my suggestion. 1. No start menu shortcuts for StartisBack. I have to go to C:/Program Files (x86)/StartisBack to open the StartisBack. It is difficult to find the tool for beginners and time taking for advanced users too, till they create short cuts. 2. In StatisBack configuration, under Start Menu  Power default actions, there is no way of setting Hibernate as default. Hibernate is not at all in the list but it still exists on start menu. 3. Not 64bit application. The 32bit works on 64bit but having a native 64bit edition add value to the tool as some might not like 32bit apps on 64bit machine. 4. The term Modern UI make it feels like the App is Windows 8 UI fan. It makes me feel like Windows 8 UI is modern and Windows 7 UI is traditional. Why not just say Windows 8 UI instead. Modern UI is a vague word to understand in as it doesn’t refer to anything. 5. Under Modern UI, “use hotkeys to invoke Start Screen:” it is useful but it doesn’t turn off metro completely! To know if metro exists or not after unchecking that command, I just opened a video with the metro – video app. It opened it without any problems. The metro is still there! So would you add another command to completely kill this tablet metro? To avoid not implemented error messages when using metro apps from desktop, it is better to completely remove them from associated programs list, if possible. Say when I click on open with on a video file, I shouldn’t see video metro app. Thus the “not implemented “error will go away!

I found another application called Robosetup, but it also works but makes errors and it doesn't accept some installers. The best solution is this. If you also want for XP, an application called ShadowProtect can do it for you. One image for all PCs. This one below is for Windows 7 and vista. Cheers!

So from what I understand, you have created the vhd and after converting it to install.wim, you inserted it to the original ISO and tried to install Windows. Then you got "can not open needed image for install". This error message might happen when: - you insert the install.wim in a wrong ISO - eg. Install.wim is for Windows 7 ultimate and ISO is for Windows 7 Professional - your Windows 7 ISO or install.wim is seen as a invalid. This happens due to extreme customization. Solution - Try your install.wim in different versions of Windows 7 ISO like home basic, ultimate, etc - install an uncustumized Windows 7, install applications and then create install.wim and create an iso file and customize the ISO to have less size (this might take some time as two applications that customize Windows 7 are at early development phase). 7customize - http://www.msfn.org/board/lofiversion/index.php/%5C%22ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/reskit/win2000/t139077-300.html RT Se7en Lite - http://www.rt7lite.com/ Good luck!

I am not sure what went wrong.You first download the zip file called Disk2vhd. Then you don't need to install the aplication. It is a portable application. You just need to run it. If the application cannot run, then two or more basic services that are important for Disk2vhd are disabled or removed. These services are: - Microsoft software shadow copy provider - Shadow protect service

Thank you for the info and direction. Update: there is an old post that talks about .wim and XP. http://www.msfn.org/board/installing-windo...tml#entry659722 And using a third party software like Shadow Protect might be another good option to make a bootable CD backup and install it on different PCs. In this regard the two important feature of ShadowProtect are: # Hardware independent restore of backup images to dissimilar hardware (P2P). # Bootable recovery CD provides automatic hardware detection and network support. For more detail... http://www.storagecraft.com/shadow_protect_desktop.php

I was going to say that. The XP Setup different from Win7/Vista. Maybe there might be a work around which requires an expert knowledge. Thanks for the PM!

You are welcome! I made a test on Virtual Box using a Windows 7 ISO which is made as described in the first post. I have used this ISO multiple times on different Machines. When I tried it on the latest Virtual Box, it didn't work. With error message of bad drivers. What I can say is, as the ISO works well on real machines, this must be the fault of Virtual Box. So whenever, you want to reinstall Windows again, try it on your Real PC and see the result. Cheers!

This is awesome Did you test my guide?

I didn't test it on Virtual box so I cannot say much on that. I see that your actual hard disk is too big as the Install.wim is 11 GB. Did you give enough space for your virtual hard disk? And could you take a snap shot of the BSOD message as soon as displayed? Don't use EasyBCD to boot from ISO in Virtual Box or Vmware. It doesn't work. Edit: I found a similar problem on Virtual Box support forum. http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php...696&start=0 It might be helpful.