Create a Custom Windows Image with Pre-installed Apps

In this guide, we’ll cover how to create a custom Windows 10/11 installation image with pre-installed apps, necessary files, and other environment and application settings. Currently, many admins prefer to deploy a clean Windows image and then install all the required programs and tools on the computer: deploy software via GPO, using the installation commands in AutoUnattend.xml or in the %WINDIR%\Setup\Scripts\SetupComplete.cmd script (allow to install software during OOBE), GPO logon scripts. or using other automation tools (SCCM, Intune, MDT, Ansible). However, in some cases, business specifics require that a pre-built Windows image with all the necessary programs be deployed to end-user computers.

The process of creating your custom Windows installation image with pre-installed software can include the following steps:

1. Deploy a clean Windows instance on a reference computer (virtual machine);
2. Boot Windows in audit mode, install the apps, configure the environment;
3. Boot the device into the WinPE environment and capture the WIM image of the installed Windows using DISM;
4. Replace the original install.wim on the installation USB flash drive (ISO image).

Building a Reference Windows Image with Pre-installed Software

The first step is to create a reference image of Windows with all the programs, files, and settings you need. Perform a clean Windows installation on a virtual machine or computer.

Download the original Windows 10/11 installation image as an ISO file or burn it directly to a bootable USB flash drive using the Media Creation Tool or Rufus.

Perform a manual Windows installation and press CTRL+SHIFT+F3 at the OOBE stage (when prompted to select regional settings). This will put the computer into Audit Mode, and you will be automatically logged in as the built-in Administrator account.

When the desktop appears, minimize the Sysprep window (don’t close it!!). Then you can start installing programs and updates, and configuring the necessary Windows settings.

I will use the WinGet package manager to install various apps and tools on Windows:

winget install --id=7zip.7zip -e ; winget install --id=Notepad++.Notepad++ -e ; winget install --id=VideoLAN.VLC -e ; winget install --id=WinDirStat.WinDirStat -e ; winget install --id=dotPDNLLC.paintdotnet -e ; winget install --id=IrfanSkiljan.IrfanView -e ; winget install --id=Microsoft.PowerToys -e

I also manually created directories and copied files for several business apps.

Customize desktop shortcuts, Start menu tiles, wallpapers, screensavers, color schemes, and more. Configure local Group Policy settings using the gpedit.msc editor. These settings will be applied to all computers that you deploy from this custom Windows image.

Once you have set up the operating system and applications, you must clean up Windows to reduce the final image size.

Delete existing shadow copies and restore points:

vssadmin delete shadows /All /Quiet

Clean up unused components and update files in the WinSxS folder:

Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase

Remove the Windows Update cache files:

del %windir%\SoftwareDistribution\Download\*.* /f /s /q

You can use this PowerShell script to clean up the Temp, Downloads, and Cache folders in the user profile.

Perform a disk cleanup using the cleanmgr tool:

Cleanmgr /sagerun:1

Clear Event Viewer logs:

for /F "tokens=*" %1 in ('wevtutil.exe el') DO wevtutil.exe cl "%1"

Empty the Recycle Bin in Windows:

Clear-RecycleBin -Force

To apply the current user’s settings to the Default user (used as a template when creating new Windows users), create an unattend.xml answer file in the C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep directory.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
<settings pass="specialize">
<component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<CopyProfile>true</CopyProfile>
</component>
</settings>
</unattend>

The final step is to prepare your custom Windows image for deployment with the sysprep.exe tool. Expand the Sysprep window and select the following options:

• Enter System Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE)
• Generalize
• Shutdown

When this process is complete, the computer will automatically shut down.

Capture a Custom Windows Image Using DISM

At this stage, you will need to capture an offline Windows image from a local drive, save it as a WIM file, and place it on a separate drive (we connected a separate 60GB empty drive to the computer).

Boot the computer with the referenced Windows image into the WinPE environment (WinRE). Using the Windows installation USB stick, boot the computer and press Shift+F10 to open the command prompt.

Identify the drive letters assigned to the Windows partition and the empty drive to which the WIM file will be copied. Run the command:

diskpart
list disk
exit

In this example, the drive containing Windows is assigned the letter E: and the empty drive is D:.

To capture an offline Windows image from the E drive and save the resulting WIM image to the D drive, run the command:

dism /capture-image /imagefile:D:\install.wim /capturedir:E:\ /ScratchDir:D:\ /name:"MyWinImage" /compress:maximum /checkintegrity /verify /bootable

It took about 30 minutes to capture the image in my case.

Replace the Original Install.wim Image File on the USB Flash Drive

Once you have captured your customized Windows image, you can replace the original install.wim or install.esd image file in the \sources folder on the installation USB flash drive (ESD is the maximum compression format used for WIM).

In my case, I renamed the old image file to install.esd_bak and copied the new install.wim image to the USB stick.

Note that the WIM image size with pre-installed software has increased significantly (from 4GB to 10GB).

If you have a FAT32 bootable USB key for installing Windows on UEFI computers, you cannot save a WIM file larger than 4GB on this file system. A large WIM image file must be split into several smaller SWM files in this case:

Dism /Split-Image /ImageFile:D:\sources\install.wim /SWMFile:c:\tmp\install.swm /FileSize:3500

In this case, DISM will create four files install.swm, install2.swm, install3.swm, and install4.swm. Copy these files to the \sources folder on the installation media. When Windows Setup installs the operating system, it merges the SWM files.

Now you can use your bootable USB flash drive to deploy the Windows image you created to any computer (you can also install Windows over the network using PXE boot).

Check that all preinstalled apps are available after Windows installation is complete:

Get-Package

The downside of this method of deploying a preconfigured Windows image is that you have to rebuild the image to update any of the apps it contains.