Can updated install.wim be used with original boot.wim

[Wod]

Hi guys,

Just finishing of my ISO and I have noticed that I foolishly integrated drivers into the boot.wim's

I don't actually need these drivers loading on boot, I've no USB 3.0 only ports for example.

Do I need to go through the whole process again or can I simply extract the original boot.wim's from original ISO and in place of ntlite cache? Will this screw anything up?

Idea being I want to keep boot time low and overall output ISO size clean and unbloated.

Thankyou for your time.

 

[garlin]

If you've added extra boot.wim drivers, they won't cause any problems except to increase the size of the overall ISO slightly. Boot.wim has only one objective: boot WinPE, prepare hardware devices like your system disk or networking, and run Setup.

After Setup completes the first pass (copying files) and reboots, boot.wim is no longer around. There's no trace of it left behind.

Adding extra drivers doesn't slow boot times. When Windows boots, it probes all the hardware devices and find matching drivers based on whatever drivers were integrated into the system. Drivers which are not needed, don't get loaded. They only take up disk space.

I wouldn't bother replacing boot.wim, but here's the proper instructions:

1. Extract the clean ISO to another folder.
2. Copy \sources\boot.wim from the new folder, to your working ISO folder's \sources folder.
3. From NTLite, select the image folder and right-menu -> Create ISO

Just remember, if you've applied BypassTPM setting (for W11) to boot.wim -- it will have to be redone.

 

[Wod]

If you've added extra boot.wim drivers, they won't cause any problems except to increase the size of the overall ISO slightly. Boot.wim has only one objective: boot WinPE, prepare hardware devices like your system disk or networking, and run Setup.

After Setup completes the first pass (copying files) and reboots, boot.wim is no longer around. There's no trace of it left behind.

Adding extra drivers doesn't slow boot times. When Windows boots, it probes all the hardware devices and find matching drivers based on whatever drivers were integrated into the system. Drivers which are not needed, don't get loaded. They only take up disk space.

I wouldn't bother replacing boot.wim, but here's the proper instructions:

1. Extract the clean ISO to another folder.
2. Copy \sources\boot.wim from the new folder, to your working ISO folder's \sources folder.
3. From NTLite, select the image folder and right-menu -> Create ISO

Just remember, if you've applied BypassTPM setting (for W11) to boot.wim -- it will have to be redone.

It's nice to see such a prompt response on a forum, it reminds me of the good old days!

Good to know that it won't slow boot times, I did just check the file difference size and it's just shy of 100MB so probably not worth the hassle as you said. Suppose I may get a crisper looking screen upon boot install as opposed to it being stretched

I'm at 4.3GB so the plan is to be able to get it onto a DVD (Win7x64 Home Prem, Pro and Ultimate) and I've got plenty left so will leave it be and possibly try to add in some post installers as I know I've got room to now.

I didn't see an option to switch of disk defrag for SSD, not sure if Windows 7 SP1 retail will automatically do this upon install since I upgraded so restored original drive onto SSD via Acronis, suppose it doesn't detect and switch off defrag schedule. I assume a reg edit entry would suffice here?

Also looking at slipstreaming MSE and updates however it doesn't seem possible? So I assume this would require a post install method? For example MSE.exe followed by mpam-hex64.exe (which is the compressed definition package, the KB equivalent package is HUGE in size and I think if that was installed before MSE.exe that it would not get detected by the security client anyway)

Thanks again for the help ☺

 

[garlin]

Good to know that it won't slow boot times, I did just check the file difference size and it's just shy of 100MB so probably not worth the hassle as you said. Suppose I may get a crisper looking screen upon boot install as opposed to it being stretched

There's no improvements from installing a better video driver in WinPE, because:
1. You're really not in WinPE longer than a few minutes.
2. Setup never resizes for a larger desktop. It's written to support SVGA displays, so you end up with a tiny window on a 4K display.

I'm at 4.3GB so the plan is to be able to get it onto a DVD (Win7x64 Home Prem, Pro and Ultimate) and I've got plenty left so will leave it be and possibly try to add in some post installers as I know I've got room to now.

When you done editing the separate images, enable ESD compression on the last pass. This should reduce the ISO size, but re-compression is a time consuming process so leave it for the end.

I didn't see an option to switch of disk defrag for SSD, not sure if Windows 7 SP1 retail will automatically do this upon install since I upgraded so restored original drive onto SSD via Acronis, suppose it doesn't detect and switch off defrag schedule. I assume a reg edit entry would suffice here?

Defrag.exe in W7 already understands SSD drives, and TRIM effectively runs about once a month on the default schedule.

Also looking at slipstreaming MSE and updates however it doesn't seem possible? So I assume this would require a post install method? For example MSE.exe followed by mpam-hex64.exe (which is the compressed definition package, the KB equivalent package is HUGE in size and I think if that was installed before MSE.exe that it would not get detected by the security client anyway)

MSE is different from Defender.

It's always an add-on package installed during Post-Setup, but you can't pre-stage any definition files like Defender. You just leave Windows Update enabled so MSE does its normal routine. If you have an itchy finger, there's a PS command which forces MSE to download definitions.

 

[Wod]

Ahh bugger. Would have atleast hoped for some benefit from the accidental option I had made :-D

Will bear that in mind on my final "happy and tested with ISO", that's OK then so on a fresh install Windows well self optimize for SSD, I remember that once upon a time this was not the case and sometimes Windows would miss some defaults but I've never freshly installed 7SP1 onto an SSD only 10 where the words "optimize disks" gives you some confidence where as in 7 it would always still use the words defragment disks.

Gotcha, yano what, I never actually had a problem with MSE updating but i have a couple of tweaks to the update interval and the fallback order force.

Time to test it anyway, finally still on gen1 i5 machines, mainly for garage work hence the reluctancy towards 10/11

There's no improvements from installing a better video driver in WinPE, because:
1. You're really not in WinPE longer than a few minutes.
2. Setup never resizes for a larger desktop. It's written to support SVGA displays, so you end up with a tiny window on a 4K display.


When you done editing the separate images, enable ESD compression on the last pass. This should reduce the ISO size, but re-compression is a time consuming process so leave it for the end.


Defrag.exe in W7 already understands SSD drives, and TRIM effectively runs about once a month on the default schedule.


MSE is different from Defender.

It's always an add-on package installed during Post-Setup, but you can't pre-stage any definition files like Defender. You just leave Windows Update enabled so MSE does its normal routine. If you have an itchy finger, there's a PS command which forces MSE to download definitions.

 

[Hellbovine]

I think all the info in this thread is great, I only wanted to comment about W7 and the future so that maybe you or other lurkers following this path might be able to save themselves a lot of time. I totally sympathize with the reluctance to use W10/11, as my main machine was on XP up until 2021, but eventually it got to a point where too much software just stopped working, and I had to migrate.

Major changes already happened this year, such as Windows 7/8/8.1 all reaching end of life, plus companies announcing their software won't run on those by the start of 2024, and that includes giants like Chromium and Steam. In addition to this, we have other factors at play, such as Microsoft deleting links to older Windows recently, plus the BlackLotus mess, when all taken together are quickly pushing everything except W10/11 into oblivion well before 2024 ends, and the stats vividly reflect this (link1). New hardware is becoming impossible to run on these older Windows too.

If any of this is important to the readers out there, the point here is it may be better to spend time working on a custom W10 or 11 image instead, since this late in the game it's extremely likely that by the time people finish perfecting their NTLite W7/8/8.1 images, that they'll go to use their new computer a few days or weeks later and see software they need no longer works, meaning all that time could have been invested better (link2).

Of course there's still niche scenarios where these older operating systems make sense, like if I wanted to install a bunch of older games on a machine dedicated to singleplayer gaming, I'd try to use XP, or W7 if that didn't work. There's other relevant situations, this was just an easy example.

 

[coax256]

I totally sympathize with the reluctance to use W10/11, as my main machine was on XP up until 2021, but eventually it got to a point where too much software just stopped working, and I had to migrate.

You are a legend! I miss the excitement of upgrades back then. XP was solid upgrade right out of the gate. I had nothing but problems with ME on my first computer purchase as an adult.