[wininstall] MultiWIM USB Installer

[LeightonJames]

Hi Guys

 

In my quest to make my life easier I have inevitably found myself stuck. Seems to be a recurring theme for me, however I do believe that this may benefit others if I can get this working.

 

I look after up to 50 schools however I am regularly at 7 of these every week. Other technicians I work with also have a similar workload. We have WDS running at all sites and have no problem deploying images from the WDS server. In fact it works very well. One thing we would like to be able to do though is deploy an image from USB. We used to have all the individual wim files in a folder on the Hard Drive and then copy and paste them into the sources folder on a ready made usb installer. This is fine but isn't perfect.

 

I was using my google-fu the other day and stumbled across this thread:

 

USB Multi WIM Setup - Unattended Windows 7/Server 2008R2 - MSFN

 

This thread details how to setup a multiboot drive for different wim files. I followed the guide tweaking it a little bit to suit my scenario. We have the 32bit and 64bit versions of Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 that we are deploying. This is my problem (copied and pasted from the above thread, pardon my laziness):

 

I have managed to get a working MultiWim USB drive but I am having issues with getting my custom Wim's to install from the drive. The install wim file from the source DVD works fine and runs through with no problems. As soon as I launch a custom wim installation I get:

 

Windows cannot open the required file E:\7-32\custom.wim. Make sure all source files required for installation are available, and restart the installation. Error code: 0x8007000B

 

I have made some slight changes to the structure of the Multiboot drive. I have 6 different boot wims referenced from a modified bcd store. The base files for the boot folder are from a Windows 7 Professional SP1 64Bit DVD. The reason for the modification to the drive structure is to accomodate the number of different OS's I manage.

 

I have a boot.wim for each version of Windows (7, 8 and 10) and each architecture (32bit and 64bit)

 

My boot folder looks like this:

 

7-32.wim

 

7-64.wim

 

8-32.wim

 

8-64.wim

 

etc..

 

These all work perfectly for the default install.wim

 

Each OS's install wims are located in seperate folders based on their respective architecture and OS

 

7-32, 7-64, 8-32 etc..

 

I modified the StartSetup.cmd to look for these files before placing it in the boot.wim. This allows me to have the correct installation environment running for the version of windows I am running. The error is only displayed after trying to install a custom wim.

 

Does any one have any ideas what might be causing this problem and how I might be able to fix it?

[Pashers]

Morning, stupid question - does the custom wim files you created work on a single USB stick? So the wim files do work on standalone media?

If so have you put the wim file as a source rather than an image?

[LeightonJames]

Yeah, thats what I don't understand

 

If I make a bootable USB stick through the usual method (rufus and windows ISO) and then replace the install.wim with my custom one (renamed install.wim obv) then it works fine. It's only when I try and install it using the above steps that it fails to work.

[Pashers]

Just re-read the original again, you can just use one/two boot .wim files. If you create a boot.wim file using windows 10 (x64 & x86) then this will support deploying images in windows 7, 8 10 etc.

It might help resolve your issue if you just use a windows 10 boot.

Edited May 24, 2016 by Pashers

[LeightonJames]

I tried just a Windows 10 boot wim and it crashed out installing the original install wim just before the initial restart but I will give it another go as I my have done something wrong initially. I spent 3 days trying to get this damn thing to work lol

 

EDIT: Just tried, exactly the same error. It's driving me insane!! I don't understand why it doesn't work for a custom wim yet it does for the original wim.

Edited May 24, 2016 by LeightonJames

[Arthur]

If you're not having much luck with MultiWIM USB Installer you could try Easy2Boot.

 

[LeightonJames]

I looked at Easy2Boot but I couldn't get my head round how to add WimFiles to it instead of ISO's (if that's even at all possible)

[Pashers]

You mentioned you look after a large number of schools. Have you thought about creating a SCCM site? You'll need a distribution point on each site locally and a primary site somewhere?

This could potentionally save you time in the long run.

[LeightonJames]

SCCM would be brilliant but we are stretched for resources as it is and each site operates on their own seperate connection which means we would have to have an SCCM site on site at each location.