So.. I'm not just talkin' s**t because I'm lazy & refuse to decrypt them.. I can & do.. I'm curious though.. what's with the whole ESD thing ? Like why do they technically exist ? Just releasing ISOs you'd have far less people spamming the forums with how do I use this / burn this / anything this ?!?!?!??!?!?! I'm also aware releases are not always given to people in the easiest possible format.. no problem.. no argument.. I just want to know where these ESDs come from & why they exist..
In relation to windows.isos: The ESDs format supports higher compression than the usual dism /capture-image /compress:max compression ratio so microsoft uses it to reduce the amount of data they have to transfer over the internet for windows installs. The ESD format does also support encryption but not all ESDs are actually encrypted. If they are, you'll need a special decryptor script, otherwise you can just export the .esd files back to normal .wims (/compress:max or /compress:fast) using the dism tool. Essentially ESDs are highly compressed .wim (windows installation) images. They are difficult to work with but can be read from and applied directly as if they were .wims. Thus technically, if you're willing to work with .esd's directly, there's no need to decrypt/decompress them. The point of a .iso file is to boot into WindowsPE (thus it contains files required to boot a computer and windows PE itself), start windows setup.exe and help users use a GUI to deploy their .wim or .esd formated images. Technically dism also supports applying .swm formated images directly, but ionu if setup.exe supports that. If you want to convert a .esd to .wim use the command: dism /export-image /sourceimagefile:E:\sources\install.esd /sourceindex:1 /destinationimagefile:C:\install.wim /compress:max /checkintegrity To convert a .wim into a .iso files you'll need WinPE (preferably for the version of windows you're installing), setup.exe and the relevant boot files, all of which can be obtained from the windows deployment toolkit along with a script to make .iso's and bootable usb sticks. The ESD format used this way is kinda new. I think you'll need the DISM version from windows 8.1 or above to export it properly. The dism tool included Windows 7 one won't work, so either download a dism.zip from somewhere or get it from the ADK. Personally I use the .esd format on NTFS formatted USB thumb drives to deploy custom .wim's in order to save space.