Saw people saying they converted the WIM to ESD to save filesize, I just ask as I see a download online which has all the latest updates up to last week and 32 and 64 bit windows but I want to add at least the latest video drivers to the disc as well as my wireless card ones that dont normally come with integrated discs but worried that doing so will mess up the image or even if it works it will just convert it back to wim and create a massive file size. So will I need to convert it to WIM? or back to ESD when done? if so how? EDIT It should be Windows 7 ESD to Wim and back, I thought that was what I typed.
You can't edit Install.esd and the process of going from esd to wim is difficult and time consuming so its preferable to take wim and mod it according to your needs
Yep, to work with an ESD would mean to install in Audit Mode, Sysprep/Generalize and then recapture as WIM, not that comfort . Using myself a WIM as base for all operations and convert the final one to ESD to reduce the size.
Hmm, well I have a untouched iso from a while back I just install updates with wintoolkit whenever they are released. So if thats easier I will just download the updates and convert it to esd. I notice all the guides say they use Windows 8 because that is what normally has esm, could I do this in Windows 7 and use a empty hard drive in my pc to install the virtual drive to(or an external) then convert, modify then convert back.
You don't typically convert win7 images to esd format since the setup program cannot read them. If you are making like a multi-version aio and use the win8 setup files or winpe 4+ then it works..
Thats what I think the person has done, mentioned how they got a file off windows 8 install and its a combined 32 bit and 64 bit one, I just want to add a few drivers to it and directx to the install, I ideally want to delete all 32 and 64 bit versions apart from HP, Pro and Ultimate too but if thats too much hassle just want to add the drivers and directx. Edit : I have a Windows 8.1 disc, can I get a small file from that and use it.
You could try adding an $oem$ folder, but if they already have one it might overwrite/be overwritten for the same files such as setupcomplete.cmd Did you know that Windows will search for the best driver during the hardware detection portion of setup in all drives with assigned letters? If you put a \drivers\ directory on your iso and shove in a bunch of drivers, it will try to find an appropriate one. The only downside is that if it finds one of the wrong architecture first, it won't look for the correct architecture
Thanks for help so far, I was thinking now I downloaded it and installed it onto a spare pc to test that I forgot I like to change things like remove action centre icon, disable windows built in burning, hide start menu options such as music and pictures etc. Also had missing usb3 and smbus controller drivers on their disc so I prefer mine. So since I want to just convert WIM to ESD and run it how simple is that? The guides all seem to assume you use windows 8 and want to convert ESD to WIM