Windows 7 Universal Installation Disc - Create

Bare Foot Kid · 21 Feb 2011

rseiler said:

Thanks. One further question, since I did this only once a long time ago: what are most people using to create the ISO at the end of the procedure? I'm pretty sure that I opened an existing image in PowerISO, deleted the contents, dragged the new files in, and then did a SaveAs. UltraISO would do that as well. The MS tool oscdimg.exe is a more complicated way.

Hello rseiler.

I used ImgBurn.

ImgBurn Free ISO Burning Software

How to create ...

SIW2 · 21 Feb 2011

You could use this - it's quicker and easier

Boot to CD/DVD

rseiler · 21 Feb 2011

Thanks everyone. That BootISOMaker script is using oscdimg.exe. For anyone wanting to understand it, here's the usage:
Oscdimg Command-Line Options

oscdimg [options] [Path to source] [Target file]

The script uses these switches:
-b: Specifies the location of the El Torito boot sector file.
-n: Enables long file names.
-m: Ignores the maximum size limit of an image.
-o: Optimizes storage by encoding duplicate files only once using a MD5 hashing algorithm to compare files.

If you want to specify a volume label, it's -l.

Note: When I've seen this command used before for this purpose, it had the "-u2" switch instead of -n (u2: Produces an image that has only the UDF file system on it). Based on looking at original MS images in PowerISO, and comparing them to the way oscdimg-created images look with either -n or -u2, I have to say that -u2 is more correct than -n. There's no doubt that original MS images are UDF.

SIW2 · 21 Feb 2011

Yes, I know

It saves some typing, that's all.

Or you could use imgburn - requires a few more clicks.

Joshatdot · 22 Feb 2011

pparks1 said:

rseiler said:

pparks1, why isn't it 3.88GB like the screenshot several posts back?

It is, sorry doing 2 things at once. it's 3.88gb, and comes out to 4,075,968KB.

DRAT .. I think my OCZ Rally2 Turbo USB drive is 3.82 GB

.. I was really wanting a all-in-one USB flash installer

rseiler · 22 Feb 2011

Joshatdot said:

DRAT .. I think my OCZ Rally2 Turbo USB drive is 3.82 GB

.. I was really wanting a all-in-one USB flash installer

What if you leave out the one that no one will ever use: Starter? I'm guessing that a way to do that is to use x64 as a base and add the x86's wim's to it (rather than the other way around), making sure to to skip adding Starter.

I have no idea if this is possible. Has anyone tried it? It might have the added advantage of listing the x64's first, something I've wanted to do anyway.

Side question: Is there any way to make the list in the order that you want? For example, I'd prefer Enterprise x64 at the top of the list.

One additional, slimmer, possibility to save space is to use -oc (Optimizes storage by encoding duplicate files only once using a binary comparison of each file. This option is slower than -o) instead of -o in oscdimg.

SIW2 · 22 Feb 2011

Nice idea - but it won't work if you export 32bit images bit into 64bit .

Unfortunately, leaving out one image ( e.g. starter ) makes virtually no difference to the size of the iso.

You might try removing the languages you don't need - that would make a difference.

rseiler · 23 Feb 2011

That it wouldn't make a difference aside, why do you say that when exporting 32bit into 64bit you couldn't leave out Starter? It should be the other way around that you couldn't leave it out, since 32bit already has it. Or are you saying that a universal disk can't be based on x64? If so, I'm very curious as to why.

I realized only today that you don't need to export to an existing wim at all: you can export to a new file. That's the most versatile, since then you don't need to use every single x86 or x64 (whichever is your base image) if you don't want. Though then it wouldn't be universal, of course.

SIW2 · 23 Feb 2011

I usually export from the 64 bit wim into the 32 bit wim. That saves creating a new wim .

The tutorial on this site suggests making a new wim - unnecessary step, unless you are not making a universal wim .

You certainly can leave out starter, but:

leaving out one image ... makes virtually no difference to the size of the iso

That's because the images share files anyway - there is only copy of each file in the install.wim

You can install 64 bit using 32 bit setup components in 32 bit sources folder.

You can't do it the other way round.

rseiler · 23 Feb 2011

SIW2 said:

I usually export from the 64 bit wim into the 32 bit wim. That saves creating a new wim .

The tutorial on this site suggests making a new wim - unnecessary step, unless you are not making a universal wim .

One other reason is if you want fine control over the order in which they appear in Setup.

The tutorial on the first page of this thread, at least, does outline doing it in the way that you suggest.

You can install 64 bit using 32 bit setup components in 32 bit sources folder.
You can't do it the other way round.

That's hugely important and subtle, since I (incorrectly) assumed that either way would work.

Update: I found further information that this isn't true when booting from the DVD to do a clean install. In that case, you can use x86 or x64 as your base image. The base image becomes important when you're attempting an upgrade install. In that case, you'll only be able to upgrade whichever architecture matches your base image (x86 or x64).