[Guide] Create a Bootable Windows 7 system Image ISO

[cluberti]

If you installed Win7, configured it, then want to use the new WIM, yes you must sysprep /generalize capture it before you can redeploy it anywhere but the original machine (and even that sometimes doesn't work). So yes, you must sysprep before you capture and redeploy, otherwise you're likely to have things just not work.

[wondim]

Does the install finish, and then Windows crashes, or does it BSOD during setup? Also, what's the bugcheck code in the BSOD itself?

Install itself goes jst fine and smooth. Its just when its done installing and starting windows it BSOD. I cant read screen because it happens so fast. My guess is that the wim file created needs to be syspreped first?

Did you install Windows 7 from DVD or USB? Did you try to make a startup repair with Windows 7 Recovery Environment?

[daraj]

Does the install finish, and then Windows crashes, or does it BSOD during setup? Also, what's the bugcheck code in the BSOD itself?

Install itself goes jst fine and smooth. Its just when its done installing and starting windows it BSOD. I cant read screen because it happens so fast. My guess is that the wim file created needs to be syspreped first?

Did you install Windows 7 from DVD or USB? Did you try to make a startup repair with Windows 7 Recovery Environment?

I installed it from iso ( not dvd) on my virtualBox application. I tried to repair it but not go. I followed the instructions on the 1st post untill the point where the iso image is ready to be burnt on dvd. Didnt burn it but instead attached it to my virtualBox and started win 7 installation. Installed went perfct with no hitch. Only when initial startup after installation it crashes.

I dont see syspre instructions on the first post. How do I do that?

[wondim]

I installed it from iso ( not dvd) on my virtualBox application. I tried to repair it but not go. I followed the instructions on the 1st post untill the point where the iso image is ready to be burnt on dvd. Didnt burn it but instead attached it to my virtualBox and started win 7 installation. Installed went perfct with no hitch. Only when initial startup after installation it crashes.

I dont see syspre instructions on the first post. How do I do that?

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.

Edited January 6, 2010 by wondim

[daraj]

I installed it from iso ( not dvd) on my virtualBox application. I tried to repair it but not go. I followed the instructions on the 1st post untill the point where the iso image is ready to be burnt on dvd. Didnt burn it but instead attached it to my virtualBox and started win 7 installation. Installed went perfct with no hitch. Only when initial startup after installation it crashes.

I dont see syspre instructions on the first post. How do I do that?

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.

Thanks for the quick answers you are providing. The hard drive on the virtualbox is 40GB so thats not a problem. the BSOD screen happens in a blink of an eye. I will try to capture that. I didnt use EasyBCD.

[gosh]

Here's a pic of my AIO ISO. It has every version of windows 7/ server 2008 r2. Only 3.91 gigs. When i get time im going to write a guide. Im thinking of putting it on my site too along with other useful information.

[wondim]

Here's a pic of my AIO ISO. It has every version of windows 7/ server 2008 r2. Only 3.91 gigs. When i get time im going to write a guide. Im thinking of putting it on my site too along with other useful information.

This is awesome Did you test my guide?

[wondim]

Thanks for the quick answers you are providing. The hard drive on the virtualbox is 40GB so thats not a problem. the BSOD screen happens in a blink of an eye. I will try to capture that. I didnt use EasyBCD.

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!

[djxspeedy]

atm i think : shoud i test it with xp installation ?

when iam testing i do it in virtualbox

so i thik i test it...hope it works.. btw wondim you have an pm with tips from me

*edit*

with xp dosnt work.. you can create the vhd & wim.. but dvd says : image not found

Edited January 7, 2010 by djxspeedy

[wondim]

*edit*

with xp dosnt work.. you can create the vhd & wim.. but dvd says : image not found

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!

[cluberti]

No, there's no workaround. The Win7 and Vista setup routine cannot bootstrap a WIM file that contains anything but Vista or Win7 (or Server 2008 / 2008 R2, of course). What happens is PE boots, you choose the image, and then setup.exe runs to prepare the WIM for extraction, and it requires the WIM to be a Vista or Win7 image. XP WIMs will just hang for awhile, and then complain about the image being invalid or not found. If you want to deploy XP from a WIM, you'll have to make your own custom WinPE (or use something like MDT 2010) to deploy the WIM with imagex.

[wondim]

No, there's no workaround. The Win7 and Vista setup routine cannot bootstrap a WIM file that contains anything but Vista or Win7 (or Server 2008 / 2008 R2, of course). What happens is PE boots, you choose the image, and then setup.exe runs to prepare the WIM for extraction, and it requires the WIM to be a Vista or Win7 image. XP WIMs will just hang for awhile, and then complain about the image being invalid or not found. If you want to deploy XP from a WIM, you'll have to make your own custom WinPE (or use something like MDT 2010) to deploy the WIM with imagex.

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

Edited January 8, 2010 by wondim

[Sprite]

Fantastic! i was looking for a simple way to cut cornors and found it! Very impressed with the install time i actually think its quicker.

Tried to install on VMWare to no avail. Yet to atempt different hardware but that is next on my list (have a sysprep copy also) will update to let you know how it goes.

On a side note for those of you without USB stick but External HDD just extract ISO to HDD and boot.

Thanks again OP great post.

All i need to do now is create a simple answer file to answer the obvious language settings etc.

[hobo]

Fantastic post. This will save me oodles of time! I seem to spend half my life installing Windows for friends, Firefox, Java, Flash, Acrobat etc etc.

I built unattended install for XP, this is so much easier.

[slimzky]

Thanks for this greate guide!