There's a new /compact option for applying image. I've been testing it and the best compression seems to happen when you start with a wim file. I tried esd and the result was larger by about half a gig. coresl to expanding vm x86 result = 5.7GB coresl to expanding vm x64 result = 7.9GB This is before actually running the os. Procedure was as follows: Create a vm in diskmgmt.msc that is expanding max 40gb run diskpart select vdisk file=c:\vhd\empty.vhd attach vdisk create partition primary format fs=ntfs quick active assign detach vdisk dism /apply-image /sourceimage:x:\sources\install.wim /index:1 /applydir:y:\ /compact (obv change x and y to the actual drive letters) Then boot up the vhd in a vm with a similar arch 10 iso cd /d c:\windows\system32 bcdboot c:\windows /s c:\ shut down or restart vm. You can then boot up from the hard drive. Anyway, I have found this useful for tinkering around in a VM since making a lot of these kind of vhd files can really clog up your drives. Also, a fair amount of this info came from xinso who was helping me figure out a certain problem. EDIT: Further testing suggests that this is not reduced on a vhd over a normal apply/install
I think the advantage would be that these files are changeable. In short term, I think wimboot would save more space. In long term, if you have lots of updates, this option would save more space as you could remove the old unused files. With wimboot it's not that simple, they're locked into the wim.
Hi, did you noticed if running dism.exe in command prompt sometimes is slow and the process seems to "sleep"? I'm pretty sure it depends by command promp, sometimes seems it sleeps and i need to hit enter to wake it up!
That's a cmd prompt thing. If it's running and not active and you click on the window it will change to "select " mode and pause You can avoid that by alt-tabbing or clicking the title bar instead of the contents.