Running offline commands after files copied from WIM

[mrjrt]

I want to do unspeakable things to my custom Windows install without changing the WIM, if possible. To that end, I want to wait until the initial "windowsPE" pass has completed, and only then run my commands. Unfortunately, if I specify RunSynchronous commands they seem to execute at the beginning of the pass, and there's no way to specify I want them at the end. No problem, I thought, I'll put them in the next phase - "offlineServicing". Ah - components I've found only let me specify driverpaths, no custom commands. Given that the driver installers are running, am I correct in assuming I'm going to have to bodge what I want to do into fake driver or some kind of other package?

By the time we get to the "specialise" pass, the new windows install is running and it's too late to monkey around with system files and directories that will be in use, so I'm kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Just thought I'd ask if I'd missed anything or if the fake driver/custom package route is the best I can hope for?

[mrjrt]

Actually, answered my own question having poked around setup with process explorer - what I want to do has to be done in the windowsPE pass as once the first reboot happens it's too late - the new installation is hosting the setup environment.

So my options are either:

• Run an asynchronous command that watches and waits until everything completes, inhibits the reboot, then does it's thing and reboots
• Extend the setup proxy I built to run the recovery environment to give me the ability to run commands after setup terminates.

The latter sounds more robust than the former...IMHO

[Tripredacus]

You can do it if you don't use Setup.exe. If you deploy an image with DISM, you can do whatever after DISM closes and before rebooting. The only problem is that if you are using an unattend file, you'll have to create an image to deploy, since you can't use an answer file with DISM.

[mrjrt]

You can do it if you don't use Setup.exe. If you deploy an image with DISM, you can do whatever after DISM closes and before rebooting. The only problem is that if you are using an unattend file, you'll have to create an image to deploy, since you can't use an answer file with DISM.

Thanks - may go down that route in the future. Was trying to avoid duplicating setup's functionality if possible, but I guess you can't piggyback off of it