Multi Installation Source USB Drive

[LeightonJames]

After months of trying to get a method that works with the various versions of Windows I have finally succeeded.

 

The aim was to create a USB bootable drive which contains a copy of EVERY Wim I use that can be installed on machines that don't image very well/quickly or simply don't have the capability to be imaged. The latter portion of the previous sentnce is what drove me to find a solution as I am due to be setting up 20+ Tablets that do not have a network port on them.

 

So, how did I manage it?

 

A VERY slimmed down version of WinPE (WinPESE) with network capability (through the use of PENetwork) and the use of an application called WinNTSetup3. Thesed apps were baked into the WinPE image so that they coiuld be run from RAM.

 

I'm not going to go into too much detail regarding the WinPE section as I am unsure how it is looked at in terms of legality however I created my own WinPE environment using WinPESE and our Windows 10 Enterprise 64bit ISO. You could possibly use a 32 bit ISO but I opted for the 64Bit version.

 

So once you have your WinPESE iso you will need to make a USB bootable version of it, I used Rufus and a 500GB drive as my weapons of choice.

 

Once the ISO has been copied onto the USB drive and the drive is bootable you need to create 2 folders on the drive. These can go anywhere you want but I put them in the root to make locating them easier.

 

The folders you need are WIM's and Unattends

 

Simply copy your WIM's and unattends into these 2 folders. Boot your target machine from USB and wait for WinPE to boot.

 

If you have included PENetwork in your build (which I highly recommend you do) it will launch at login and after a brief pause it will initiate your network cards and allow you to connect to Wireless and Wired Networks.

 

Installing Windows using WinNTSetup3

 

This is the simplest part of the entire process.

 

Select your chosen WIM in the top section

Select your System Reserved Drive

Select the desired Installation Location and then Format it using the F button next to Search.

If you choose to use an Unattend file with your installation, select the Unattend option in the bottom left and locate your chosen Unattend file.

 

Leave the rest of the settings as they are and then click Setup. On the next pop up check the settings are correct and then click OK.

 

Now wait.

 

I found that one of the custom WIM’s I use which is around 16GB in size takes about 20 minutes to install. Once it has finished, reboot the machine and follow through the remaining steps.

 

Why the network connectivity?

You can if you wish use this method to rollout images over a network where WDS/SCCM is not an option. Share the Wim’s location and allow your clients to connect to it using the Network drive option in PENetwork. It will obviously be quite slow over wireless if that is your only option but it does give you another way to deploy images. The beauty of this is that you do not need to leave the USB drive plugged in in order to use these options as WinPE runs from RAM