Hello everyone, been reading a lot from here but first time poster.
To summarize:
1. Spin up VM and install Win11 24H2 official Microsoft ISO
2. Boot the VM, immediately go into Audit mode from the first OOBE screen (CTRL + SHIFT + F3)
3. Install apps, configure Windows settings, etc.
4. Run Sysprep as very last step: sysprep /generalize /oobe /shutdown /unattend:E:\Unattend\Unattend.xml
5. VM shuts down. Attach WinPE ISO, boot to WinPE.
6. dism /capture-ffu /imagefile=E:\Test.ffu /capturedrive=\\.\physicaldrive0 /name:disk0 /description:"ffu test"
7. Copy and paste that FFU to a USB stick.
8. On target physical computer, insert that stick and a stick with the same WinPE ISO made bootable
9. Boot to WinPE: dism /apply-ffu /imagefile=D:\Test.ffu /applydrive:\\.\physicaldrive0
10. Then I use the exit command in WinPE to reboot, and we boot into Windows successfully.
11. BUT, I reboot and then I get errors and can't boot to Windows.
I figured out that if I boot to WinPE again and run bcdboot C:\Windows, where C is the drive letter we pushed the FFU to, I now get the choice of two Windows boot options. One boot fails, the other successfully boots to Windows, then I can go into msconfig and delete the faulty boot entry and everything works well.
But I'd like to avoid running the bcdboot command and deleting from msconfig.
Does anyone know a solution where all I do is push the FFU and it works? Maybe just a switch on the DISM commands I am missing or something?
I also have another issue where I was trying to use the answer file to create and set the partitions so that the Windows partition is the right-most partition, so that when the FFU is pushed, I can just extend the Windows partition in diskpart to take up the entirety of the storage. However this makes DISM fail on the /apply-ffu step. Should that be a separate thread? Thanks everyone.
To summarize:
1. Spin up VM and install Win11 24H2 official Microsoft ISO
2. Boot the VM, immediately go into Audit mode from the first OOBE screen (CTRL + SHIFT + F3)
3. Install apps, configure Windows settings, etc.
4. Run Sysprep as very last step: sysprep /generalize /oobe /shutdown /unattend:E:\Unattend\Unattend.xml
5. VM shuts down. Attach WinPE ISO, boot to WinPE.
6. dism /capture-ffu /imagefile=E:\Test.ffu /capturedrive=\\.\physicaldrive0 /name:disk0 /description:"ffu test"
7. Copy and paste that FFU to a USB stick.
8. On target physical computer, insert that stick and a stick with the same WinPE ISO made bootable
9. Boot to WinPE: dism /apply-ffu /imagefile=D:\Test.ffu /applydrive:\\.\physicaldrive0
10. Then I use the exit command in WinPE to reboot, and we boot into Windows successfully.
11. BUT, I reboot and then I get errors and can't boot to Windows.
I figured out that if I boot to WinPE again and run bcdboot C:\Windows, where C is the drive letter we pushed the FFU to, I now get the choice of two Windows boot options. One boot fails, the other successfully boots to Windows, then I can go into msconfig and delete the faulty boot entry and everything works well.
But I'd like to avoid running the bcdboot command and deleting from msconfig.
Does anyone know a solution where all I do is push the FFU and it works? Maybe just a switch on the DISM commands I am missing or something?
I also have another issue where I was trying to use the answer file to create and set the partitions so that the Windows partition is the right-most partition, so that when the FFU is pushed, I can just extend the Windows partition in diskpart to take up the entirety of the storage. However this makes DISM fail on the /apply-ffu step. Should that be a separate thread? Thanks everyone.
- Windows Build/Version
- Win 11 24H2 26100.1742
My Computer
At a glance
Windows 11
- OS
- Windows 11
- Computer type
- Laptop
- Manufacturer/Model
- Dell Precision 7680
