Does Win7 DISM handling make a difference processing Win7 Live?

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pmikep

Active Member
For nuhi :

If I understand it correctly, we need to be processing images in either Win 8.1 or Win 10 (not Win 7) due to some difference in DISM handling?

And so there are some things that NTLite can do when running under Win 8.1 or 10 as Host, that NTLite cannot do when Win 7 is the Host.

Whatever the underlying difference, this started me thinking about whether there are negative consequences to processing a Live Win 7 installation?

Not that a Win 7 user has a choice. (Unless the user wants to go through the effort of capturing an image, post-processing it and then replacing the image. Which I don't.)

But I thought it is an interesting question to ask. If there are limitations, are they posted somewhere?

(Edit: I see that "Windows 7 SP1 requires the SHA2 update (KB4474419) for NTLite to start." But I'm asking about any other limitations. (I also found a post by Clanger, to the effect that one cannot update a Win10 image using Win7 as a Host. But I'm not asking about that either.))
 
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W7 EOL can perfectly handle any W7 image, if you have the Dec 2020 or later SSU updates (all of which require SHA-2 support).

W7 cannot integrate many 8.1 to 11 features, because it's DISM is too old. Some of which cannot be fixed by running the ADK (which has a newer version of DISM). NTLite won't take advantage of ADK DISM on W7 hosts, either. All Windows versions can perfectly handle any release older than itself. DISM must be the same or newer than the highest version encoded within any update it touches.

SHA-2 support is mandatory across all Windows platforms, because MS stopped signing files in SHA-1 format (now deprecated due to faster hash computation on modern GPUs).
 
A related question, which I think that garlin has already answered:

As background, instead of using the Host Refresh wizard in NTLite in Win7, I've been preparing a Win7 wim for Host Refresh purposes in Win8.1. (With the latest Win7 updates and using the /forcelistcomponents Preset.) Then I boot into Win7 and run the Setup.exe that I just created.

So the question is, does using the DISM from Win8.1 cause problems for Win7?

From what garlin said, "All Windows versions can perfectly handle any release older than itself. DISM must be the same or newer than the highest version encoded within any update it touches," it appears that the answer to my question is "No." Everything should be fine.
 
Clanger said:
W10 dism on windows 7.
Click to expand...

NTLite doesn't use it though. It's hard-coded to \Windows\System32\DISM.exe even if you change the environment paths or SYSROOT/WINDIR.
Believe me I've tried to make it work.

Later W10 DISM's (and W11) don't work as drop-in replacements. They depend on WOF drivers, which is a W10-ism (the whole "filter" thing if you remember the NVIDIA control panel). Most people agree ADK (outside of 8.1) is hit-or-miss on W7.
 
garlin said:
NTLite doesn't use it though. It's hard-coded to \Windows\System32\DISM.exe even if you change the environment paths or SYSROOT/WINDIR.
Believe me I've tried to make it work.
Click to expand...
I thought about that, how about just replacing those 3 w7 dism files with the w10 ones?
 
Hmm,,,,,,

Hypothetical.
You got a W10 LTSC 1809 partition just for messing about on. It gets updated every month. It services w10 1809 and earlier OS's only. You copy the w10 3 dism files over to 7 they get updated on w10.
 
pmikep said:
So the question is, does using the DISM from Win8.1 cause problems for Win7?

From what garlin said, "All Windows versions can perfectly handle any release older than itself. DISM must be the same or newer than the highest version encoded within any update it touches," it appears that the answer to my question is "No." Everything should be fine.
Click to expand...

Windows features or updates for a given release are written in a package format appropriate for that version of Windows. Just like you can't randomly swap updates for W7 into a W11 image. DISM will update the image using the right set of rules. There is nothing left behind to know what version of DISM prepped your image.

The version that prepped an image does not have to match the DISM actually embedded inside the image.
 
Clanger said:
You got a W10 LTSC 1809 partition just for messing about on. It gets updated every month. It services w10 1809 and earlier OS's only. You copy the w10 3 dism files over to 7 they get updated on w10.
Click to expand...

Not that simple. Look for the ADKs and install them, there's a whole bunch more DLL's and system drivers (filters). There has to be reg sorcery, which some of the plumbing is missing from W7. Same problem with the oldest W10 builds (17xx) cannot reliably host W11 DISM.
 
garlin said:
there's a whole bunch more DLL's and system drivers (filters).
Click to expand...
Yeah, i think ive seen them.
Ive found its best to build w8.1 on 8.1(minimum), ltsc on ltsc(minimum) because ntlite correctly picks up an unattended options from the host.
 
Clanger said:
Exactly what files are in a Servicing Stack update?
Click to expand...

Basically you get a new DISM and WU (plus whatever libraries). DISM has to handle all the special case rules. For example, the documented way to flip reserved storage is a DISM command. We all know it's doing registry mods. But it has to know what special bits to touch. Any older Windows will have no idea what reserved storage or any toggled feature does.

Every time they need special handling, a new SSU goes out. Like to break BypassESU, they deliberately messed up things. MS never tells you what's inside the SSU, other than every new update will require it past a certain date.

The treadmill is so bad, now SSU's are automatically bundled in every W10 & W11 CU just to make sure you pick up the latest.
 
garlin I get ya, thank you :). So the Servicing Stack is an umbrella term for multiple components that do all the windows servicing, its not a single component.
 
garlin said:
Basically you get a new DISM and WU (plus whatever libraries). DISM has to handle all the special case rules. For example, the documented way to flip reserved storage is a DISM command. We all know it's doing registry mods. But it has to know what special bits to touch. Any older Windows will have no idea what reserved storage or any toggled feature does.

Every time they need special handling, a new SSU goes out. Like to break BypassESU, they deliberately messed up things. MS never tells you what's inside the SSU, other than every new update will require it past a certain date.

The treadmill is so bad, now SSU's are automatically bundled in every W10 & W11 CU just to make sure you pick up the latest.
Click to expand...
So does this mean that one has to have downloaded the latest SS for their Host to use the latest version of NTLite?

And if so, does (or should) NTLite check for the latest DISM in the Host?
 
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