Now, when setting up post-installation scripts, you can import the content of Batch scripts: These scripts will be run as always: For each imported script, a directory is created for it, in case your script reads or writes files: The parent directory ("\DISMTools") is temporary and is removed after a stage has finished. Experience this with the latest nightly installer.
With the nightly installers that will arrive shortly, you will now see experimental builds of the Driver Installation Module (DIM) for ARM64 and ARM64EC: You will not be able to launch them from the DISMTools PE in an ARM64 system yet because they are highly experimental, and I want to see if they truly work before adding that support. If you have ARM64 systems, you can try opening these native versions from a full Windows environment, which is possible. This has involved several changes in the DIM project: The entire project now uses the build tools of Visual Studio 2022, as opposed to the ones from Visual Studio 2012. This means that you can no longer use VS2012 to its full extent to work on the DIM A revamped build system has been introduced that will build all 4 platforms. The original ones still use the build tools from VS2012, but ARM variants use the new ones: Testing of existing platforms has concluded successfully, but give these new installers a try to test the ARM64 builds
For Preview 2, the Driver Installation Module will see new changes. One of these changes is the new instructions and status messages that will appear at the bottom of the window. This applies to all 3 architectures supported by this tool: I say 3 architectures instead of 4 because the Arm64EC version is no longer built, since it acts more like a bridge between AMD64 and ARM64 and, since the tool works perfectly on the latter, it's not needed. Also, it didn't start. Anyway, another less noticeable change in the program is that image operations have been refactored. You won't notice any changes in behavior.
With the latest nightly installers of Preview 2, image information reports will look a bit different: This change lets you navigate to a section more easily. It adapts to the window size, shrinking automatically when the window is small or manually if you prefer. However, we had to lose something to have this: printing support is now removed. It may come back in the future, but given that tables don't look correctly on printed copies of the report, it may not come back for a while. This will not be backported to 0.6.1 as part of the usual monthly updates. What will also not be backported is a set of tasks that will be fully implemented soon, for the release of Preview 2:
Work on DISMTools 0.6.1 Update 1 has started, and will come out next week, alongside Preview 2 of 0.6.2.
The ability to upgrade a Windows image to a higher edition has been added. This finishes the image edition tasks: The ability to work with the EULA by either copying it to a destination or accepting it with a product key can only be done on Windows Server installations. DISMTools will check that requirement and act accordingly:
DISMTools 0.6.2 Preview 2 and 0.6.1 Update 1 are now available for download and installation. They will also be available on WinGet.
Soon, you will see some improvements in the PE Helper when it comes to reporting image information:
Long time no see! For this week, several improvements were made to some of the DISMTools components: A couple of minor visual issues in both the main program and the Driver Installation Module (DIM) were fixed A feature found in the old version of the unattended answer file creation wizard was reimplemented - you can now copy a generic product key to the clipboard. You can also grab it from firmware (if you have a modern system): You can now toggle full-screen mode by pressing F11. When you're in full-screen mode, you can also exit it by clicking the menu item on the top right: HotInstall now lets you get complete image information: Search queries in the feature and capability information dialogs now use LINQ All these changes and more are available in the latest nightly installer.
DISMTools is not primarily designed to debloat Windows images. While you can do that, it will be pretty tricky.
Based on the mixed feedback of the green color scheme, a new feature has been planned for version 0.7: a theme engine. This allows for easier customization of the program's colors. To test this engine, a demo application has been made: The theme files are straightforward to make and encompass background, foreground, and 4 accent colors. They are simple INI files that contain this information, and a name: This also makes it easy for you to make your themes. They are dynamically loaded by the demo application, but when the engine is implemented in DT, it will not have such a capability at first. I'm thinking about including 6 themes with version 0.7: Light and dark mode variants of a new color scheme that I still need to figure out Light and dark mode variants of the green color scheme (from versions 0.5 to 0.6.2) Light and dark mode variants of the blue color scheme (versions 0.4.2 and older)
With version 0.6.2, you will see some planned features for the 0.7 Series. This version will ship with a prerelease build of HotInstall that differs from the 0.6.2 counterpart in one thing: the splash screen and the installer are now merged into one. No more changes will be made to HotInstall for 0.6.2. Those will be reserved for version 0.7.
The final preview release of DISMTools 0.6.2 is now available. The stable version of 0.6.2 will come out on April 26. After this version is released, work will begin on version 0.7