Windows Embedded Standard 7supports booting from a VHD file. Installing the OS into a VHD can be very easy.

Windows Embedded Standard 7 allows you to add and remove features on your existing image.

This can be done very easily by using the Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool. The tool allows you to either online or offline edit your image. The online option enables you to add or remove features while the image is running. The offline version lets you add or remove features from an image which is currently not booted.

The basic command line to add feature packages to your image looks like this:

This video demonstrates you the usage of imagex together with either Windows Vista AIK or Windows 7 AIK.
A detailed command description can be found here.

The video shows the capturing of an installed “ready-to-clone” image where it will be saved to an external harddrive.
The second part will show the deployment to a fresh system where the target disk still needs to be prepared.

Easy installation

The setup (IBW - Image Build Wizard) can be run directly on the target device with an easy to use setup environment.
If you would like to create unattended setup templates for your machine you can use the  Image Configuration Editor (ICE) tool.

Before beginning with the image creation or deployment – please download the WAIK tools from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=C7D4BC6D-15F3-4...) and create either a bootable DVD or bootable USB stick which contains imagex. For this please follow the documentation that comes with the WAIK tools. Preparation Please follow the preparation steps for both – image creation and image deployment as you’ll need to have a working network connection. Setting up a DHCP server You can skip this step if you have a DHCP server running in your network. Create a new dialup connection – the settings like number, etc. are not important. Open the settings of the created dialup connection and enable internet sharing for the local network adapter which will be connected with your target device. Check the IP-address of the local network adapter – it should be 192.168.0.1 Create a network share On your development machine set up a network share where the image will be located. Please make sure you can access the network share from another pc and that you have write access to this share. Mapping a network drive in Windows PE Boot the target machine from the previous created media. In the command prompt type ipconfig to check if the pc has a valid ip address. You can use ping (e.g. ping 192.168.0.1) to test if the connection to the development pc works. Map a network drive to your development pc. net use N: \\\ [/User:\ ] Sample net use N: \\192.168.0.1\images /User:devmachine\administrator admin Create an image To create an image we will use the imagex tool which comes with the WAIK tools. For more information on imagex please have a look on Microsoft Technet http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc722145.aspx Type the following command imagex /capture C: N:\image.wmi “Master image” You can also use additional paramters such as /compress to compress the image. For additional arguments please type imagex /? Deploy an image Before we will deploy the image we will prepare the target disk to make sure that the image can boot after the deployment. Preparing the target disk Run diskpart and type the following commands LIST DISK DISKPART> list disk Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt -------- ---------- ------- ------- --- --- Disk 0 Online 149 GB 0 B Disk 1 Online 149 GB 0 B Use this command to find out the disk id of the disk that should be used as target. SELECT DISK 0 (instead of 0 use the appropriate disk id of your target disk) CLEAN (this will remove all partitions on the target disk) CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY (this creates a primary partition on the target disk) ACTIVE (set the previous created partition active) ASSIGN LETTER = C (assign the drive letter C) FORMAT FS=NTFS QUICK (do a quick ntfs format) EXIT (quick diskpart) Deploy the image Run the following command to deploy the image from the network share imagex /apply n:\image.wim 1 c: Reboot your machine – it should now boot from the image properly.

No, you do not need to enter a separate license for each cloned image.

Why?

The licensing of Windows Embedded works different than for normal Windows versions.

A image is fully licensed if you put a license sticker onto the device.

If you need more details you can contact us any time!

For more details on how to create a full version image for XPe/WES have a look at the “How to enter the product key in XP Embedded / Windows Embedded Standard?” post.

This is only valid for the following products: