Integrating Dart 8 tools to Windows 8 winre.wim / Replace standard Windows 8 winre.wim with Dart created recovery.wim
-
Friday, November 16, 2012 12:02 PM
I was planning to integrate Dart 8 tools into winre.wim of Windows 8 Ent. What i have done was as follows:
1. Created an Dart Recovery Image in as .iso file, mounted it and copied boot.wim from sources folder to E:\Dart\winre.wim
2. Copied standard install.wim from Windows 8 Ent x86 DVD Sources folder to harddisk
3. Mounted standard install.wim to e:\mount folder
4. Replaced standard winre.wim in e:\mount\Windows\System32\recovery\winre.wim with E:\Dart\winre.wim
5. Unmounted Install.wim and replaced default install.wim in deploymentshare\Operating Systems\Win8Entx86\Sources with Install.wim with modified Install.wim.
Problem is that operating system installation hangs after first boot. There is no errors in Bdd.log
I thougt it could be done this way cause Dart uses standard install.wim as base when recovery image is created but obviously something is wrong here?
- Edited by Jouni J Sunday, November 18, 2012 9:10 AM
All Replies
-
Saturday, November 17, 2012 11:28 PM
Hi,
Not sure why you're having issues, however you're doing it properly. I tried to do the same (simply mounting the image I've already had imported into MDT, and then replaced the winre.wim file with the boot.wim file created with dart) and this worked fine in order to launch DaRT upon system boot failure, I had no problems deploying the altered image.
It's a simple matter of replacing the \Windows\System32\Recovery\WinRE.wim file inside the Windows 8 image with the boot.wim file that's created with the Dart 8 wizard.
Alternatively, you can use ReAgentC.exe to configure WinRE settings.
If you use the following command (used as example), you can simply use a file copy to get the DaRT image onto your HDD and configure Windows to use a recovery image at a different location. It can be on a different drive as well. Note; the file needs to be named winre.wim (whether there are caps in it won't matter, however you cannot use a different name like dart.wim or boot.wim)
ReAgentC.exe /SetReImage /Path R:\Recovery\WinRE /Target C:\Windows
However, I don't suggest you should keep the RE image on the same volume as the Windows OS :). You should move this to your boot volume (which was also automatically done in my case without any problems when I tested this). It seems the default WinRE configuration of Windows 8 has been improved from how it was implemented in Windows 7, where the winre.wim file would be stored on C:\Recovery\{guid}\WinRE.wim after the first boot configuration. With Windows 8 it will be moved to the active boot partition (would be the first partition on the boot disk by default) at {boot partition}\Recovery\{guid}\WinRE.wim
If you want to make use of ReAgentC to point windows to a different path you first need to use the /disable switch, then run the /setreimage switch and then /enable it again. It's however not that easy to simply replace the winre.wim file located on the boot volume, due to the guid being randomized for each Windows installation. So I would recommend to do the following
- Assign drive letter to boot volume (lets say R:)
- Delete folder R:\Recovery
- Create folder R:\Recovery\WinRE
- Copy boot.wim to R:\Recovery\WinRE\WinRE.wim
- Disable WinRE, using ReAgentC /disable
- Point RE config to new path using the example ( ReAgentC.exe /SetReImage /Path R:\Recovery\WinRE /Target C:\Windows )
- Enable WinRE, using ReAgentC /enable
The upside of doing this process as part of a task sequence, is that you do not need to manually edit the windows 8 install image that you're deploying with MDT. Whenever you for example add a MSD or NIC driver to the WinPE image, you would need to manually mount the wim file again and replace the file, commit and unmount the image. If you save the dart wim image on a file share, or even inside the DS, you can simply always put the latest version at that location and it will automatically be used during the deployment process.
Kind regards,
Stephan Schwarz
If one of these posts answered your question or issue, please click on "Mark as answer".
My Blog | Twitter: @Schwarz_Stephan | MCTS, MCITP, MCSA, MCC-2011.
How to configure Windows RE/OEM Recovery Partition with MDT
How to configure Windows RE/OEM Recovery Partition with MDT 2012 Update 1- Proposed As Answer by Stephan Schwarz Monday, November 19, 2012 1:38 PM
-
Monday, November 19, 2012 11:57 AM
Thanks Stepahan for your quick and in-depth answer. I´m only testing this with client hyper-v virtual machines. I first tried to create Dart Recovery image with virtual 2012 server but for some reason creating Dart recovery image always stopped to DismInitialize failed. Error code= 0x8007007e. I then created Dart recovery image (to get that boot.wim) with physical workstation (Windows 8 x86) and that worked well as what it comes to creating Dart recovery image. I tooked boot.wim from that Dart recovery image.
Anyway i´m going to try your method as its much easier to maintaing :O)
Edit:
I earlier mounted .iso that Dart created and copied boot.wim from it inside Win8 install.wim (renamed winre.wim first). I also tried to copy boot.wim (renamed to winre.wim) that Dart creates directly to save folder inside install.wim but with no success :(
Maybe its becouse of virtualmachines...
.png)
