It sounds like your problem has nothing to do with install.wim if you have a black screen. You have to be ALOT more detailed with exactly what you did to get help.
windows 8 SUPPORT splitted images. The problem is with the licenses or some files with certains filesizes. 3900 is the best result I tried and worked for me with a 6 GB WIM. Just try with 3900 the split
My guess is you also captured system reserved partition & that is not required... yes rename required wim to install.wim...
Ok, thanks, so I tried to rename "windows partition" to install.wim and it works perfect. The only problem I have is that after installation it doesn't ask me for user creation and start with DISABLED administrator (so I cannot login). Maybe I made wrong generalize command?? Code: Sysprep /generalize /shutdown /oobe Or must I create unattend.xml answer file? Is there a way to leave users to create their own account name?
If you press ctrl-shift-f3 during the user creation screen in setup, it will bypass it and go into audit mode. If you set up your system using that, and then capture it after sysprep, it should re-enable the user creation.
Yes, already done. Pressed ctrl-shift-f3 and goes into audit mode, install office 2013 and windows update. Then applied the following commands: dism /online /cleanup-image /startcomponentcleanup Sysprep /generalize /shutdown /oobe Then, since I'm on VMWare, I attached the virtual disk to other windows 8 installation and do the following: Dism /Capture-Image /ImageFile:c:\install.wim /CaptureDir:C:\ /Name:"Windows 8 Pro x86" As explained, the resulted install.wim works, but after installation I'm not able to create user and the only user is "locked" Administrator!
Hmm... that's not supposed to happen. Try it again using the sysprep tool that launches rather than the sysprep commandline, if you have the patience to sit through all that again I only suggest retrying because I've definitely got it to work before. That's pretty clever attaching the vmware disk to the other vmx. I wish I thought of that...
Locked Administrator account means you are still in audit mode, i think. So something wrong with your sysprepping. Check commands, do it again as Murphy suggested. I also use VMware Workstation virtual mashines as reference PCs. Never had a problem.
Ok guys, thanks for confirming the procedure I've done. So I'll start from scratch using the sysprep windows rather than the command line. This time I'll save a snapshot first to sysprep... just in case!!! Just for curiosity, which other method do you use for make .wim from vmware?
I didn't. I made a double-boot setup by shrinking the hd and installing on extra unpartitioned space. I had briefly looked about mounting vhd and stuff using diskmgmt but I didn't think about mounting the vmware disk to another vmware. I briefly looked at converting the vmware disk to a vhd, which I think is possible; though I haven't done it. Your idea is a lot better.
Vmware workstation has option to map virtual disk to host OS & doing that you can also capture image....
The VM setup i use lately is Oracle VM Virtualbox. When you setup the VM, you have the option to save it to a vhd. That way, if you ever need to capture the wim i just mount the vhd and capture the drive. Also, you could make a vhd, mount it, and then install Windows to it. It also has a tab for EFI booting you can select on the fly. Theres also programs to convert (with dism i think in a ps1 script) wims to vhd or vhdx. You could also add an entry for the VHD to your BCD and can live boot it.