Live WIM image capture?

Question

Is there a tool that can capture a live Server WIM image? Without having to boot the server into WinPE and use imageX. A free or commercial tool would be OK.

Thanks!

score 9 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:14

9

Sure, free solution: you can use volume shadow copy and ImageX to do this on your own.

vssadmin create shadow /for=C:
vssadmin list shadows

Then grab the shadow copy's volume ID. (Usually looks like \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopyXX.)

imagex /capture \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy10\\ image.wim "Server Image"

Then get rid of the shadow copy.

vssadmin delete shadows /for=C:

Might want to use an exact shadow ID to delete (see the /shadow=XXX switch.)

For a solid enterprise-style solution, see SmartDeploy.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:14

Community

1

answered Aug 29 '11 at 22:49

seisyll

91
1
4

SmartDeploy is great! Highly recommended. – arachnode.net Mar 10 '13 at 21:53
You can do this in Windows 7 as well, although `vssadmin create` doesn't exist. It can be done with a bit of VBScript, though. See: http://pastebin.com/uvB8KtMR – Aaron Mason Apr 01 '15 at 00:06

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 08 '11 at 04:38

0

Ghost has this functionality but for GHO not WIM images - http://altirisbe.blogspot.com/2008/12/how-to-use-ghost-imaging-to-create.html

answered Apr 08 '11 at 04:38

user63655

11
2

This is a protected blogpost ... [It would be preferable](http://meta.stackexchange.com/q/8259) to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference. – j0k Dec 13 '12 at 10:43

Live WIM image capture?

2 Answers2