My wim is bigger than your wim...

[alluseridsrejected]

and I am in no way proud of this .

I am trying to create a new 64 bit Windows 7 SP1 wim file for deploying to computers I am refurbishing. I created an autounattend.xml using WSIM from the OPK and created it from the X17-58997.iso previously downloaded from digital river before MS shut it down. The install from this seems to go fine, but I can immediately shutdown with sysprep audit generalize and capture the wim file using imagex from my PE disk with zero changes to the system and I am getting wim of almost 14GB even when specifying /compress maximum. Even worse than this, I did the same process only in addition I just applied drivers with Snappy Driver Installer and installing a few applications like Open Office, Firefox, MSSE, VLC, Reader & ImgBurn from ninite and now my wim is almost 30GB! I did not even install any of the 174 patches Windows Update showed available.

This makes creating a recovery partition ridiculous. I must be doing something wrong, because I have a 7 Pro SP1 x64 wim of only about 3GB.

Any ideas of how you go about determining why the file would be sooo big? Any body else created a 64bit Win7 HP Sp1 wim? What size wim do you have?

 

[JustInspired]

Perhaps you should post the contents of the unattended xml file so we can see if there are any clues there.
I capture wims all the time but do the commands manually for now. Don't have any size issues.

 

[alluseridsrejected]

Perhaps you should post the contents of the unattended xml file so we can see if there are any clues there.
I capture wims all the time but do the commands manually for now. Don't have any size issues.

Thanks JustInspired. I think I have a pretty minimal autounattend file. I edited out the windows license key:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
    <settings pass="windowsPE">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-International-Core-WinPE" 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">
            <InputLocale>en-US</InputLocale>
            <SystemLocale>en-US</SystemLocale>
            <UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage>
            <UserLocale>en-US</UserLocale>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-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">
            <DiskConfiguration>
                <Disk wcm:action="add">
                    <DiskID>0</DiskID>
                    <WillWipeDisk>true</WillWipeDisk>
                    <CreatePartitions>
                        <CreatePartition wcm:action="add">
                            <Extend>false</Extend>
                            <Order>1</Order>
                            <Size>5000</Size>
                            <Type>Primary</Type>
                        </CreatePartition>
                        <CreatePartition wcm:action="add">
                            <Order>2</Order>
                            <Size>100</Size>
                            <Type>Primary</Type>
                        </CreatePartition>
                        <CreatePartition wcm:action="add">
                            <Extend>true</Extend>
                            <Order>3</Order>
                            <Type>Primary</Type>
                        </CreatePartition>
                    </CreatePartitions>
                    <ModifyPartitions>
                        <ModifyPartition wcm:action="modify">
                            <Format>NTFS</Format>
                            <Label>Recovery</Label>
                            <Order>1</Order>
                            <PartitionID>1</PartitionID>
                            <TypeID>0x27</TypeID>
                        </ModifyPartition>
                        <ModifyPartition wcm:action="add">
                            <Active>true</Active>
                            <Format>NTFS</Format>
                            <Label>System</Label>
                            <Order>2</Order>
                            <PartitionID>2</PartitionID>
                        </ModifyPartition>
                        <ModifyPartition wcm:action="add">
                            <Format>NTFS</Format>
                            <Label>Windows</Label>
                            <Letter>C</Letter>
                            <Order>3</Order>
                            <PartitionID>3</PartitionID>
                        </ModifyPartition>
                    </ModifyPartitions>
                </Disk>
                <WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI>
            </DiskConfiguration>
            <ImageInstall>
                <OSImage>
                    <InstallTo>
                        <DiskID>0</DiskID>
                        <PartitionID>3</PartitionID>
                    </InstallTo>
                    <WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI>
                    <InstallToAvailablePartition>true</InstallToAvailablePartition>
                </OSImage>
            </ImageInstall>
            <UserData>
                <ProductKey>
                    <Key>XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX</Key>
                    <WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI>
                </ProductKey>
                <AcceptEula>true</AcceptEula>
            </UserData>
            <UseConfigurationSet>true</UseConfigurationSet>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <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">
            <OEMInformation>
                <HelpCustomized>false</HelpCustomized>
                <Manufacturer>Wilson Computer Services LLC</Manufacturer>
                <SupportHours>10AM-6PM CST</SupportHours>
                <SupportPhone>254-746-5300</SupportPhone>
                <SupportURL>www.wilsoncomputersvcs.com</SupportURL>
                <Logo></Logo>
            </OEMInformation>
            <TimeZone>Central Standard Time</TimeZone>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <settings pass="auditSystem">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-PnpCustomizationsNonWinPE" 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">
            <DriverPaths>
                <PathAndCredentials wcm:action="add" wcm:keyValue="1">
                    <Path>D:\winbits\Out-of-Box Drivers</Path>
                </PathAndCredentials>
            </DriverPaths>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <settings pass="oobeSystem">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Deployment" 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">
            <Reseal>
                <Mode>Audit</Mode>
            </Reseal>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <cpi:offlineImage cpi:source="wim:e:/sources/install.wim#Windows 7 HOMEPREMIUM" xmlns:cpi="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:cpi" />
</unattend>

 

[pcpete]

What is the size of the system before you system prep it?

 

[alluseridsrejected]

I just figured out what was happening. The problem was a faulty thumb drive. I can not tell you how much frustration I have been through the past few days trying to figure this out. Now that I just reran everything with a new thumb drive my image file is just under 3.7GB not specifying any compress option.

 

[Krynn72]

I have another similar question with an issue I've noticed with my wim files. While the properties say the size, and "size on disk" say 3.x gb, I cannot copy the file to a drive that has less than around 30gb free space. Its not a huge problem since I happen to be using a 500gb drive exclusively for them, but I went to transfer a wim from my laptop to a bench machine and couldn't use my flash drive to do it. Is this something others experience as well?

 

[NJW]

I cannot copy the file to a drive that has less than around 30gb free space.

As a complete WAG, I suspect it's a combination of how the flash drive wants to write files (write and erase block sizes? Wear levelling?), the filesystem on the flash drive and the size/compressability of the file you want to write. For example, if the flash drive is FAT32, it doesn't support sparse files, which is undoubtedly (another WAG) used in creating the wim file.

Try defragging a file on an SSD or other flash device (yes, I know you 'never need to do that'*) and it takes forever, with continuous drive activity. Better to copy everything off, reformat and restore.

*Zalman and multi-boot USB flash drives usually require an iso image to be contiguous.