Apply Images

Note

This content applies to Windows 7. For Windows 8 content, see Windows Deployment with the Windows ADK.

In this section, you apply images captured from your reference computer to your destination computer. This process is called build-to-plan (BTP).

Prerequisites

A Windows PE RAM disk. You can create this by using the process described in Windows PE Walkthroughs.
Image-application tools. You can add image-application tools, such as ImageX, to the Windows PE disk.
One or more Windows image (.wim) files that you have prepared for deployment. You can capture and prepare images by using the processes described in Capture Images.
One or more destination computers. These are the computers that you distribute to customers.

The following processes are described in the how-to topics in this section:

Boot the destination computer by using Windows PE.
Select the hard disk and prepare the partitions.
Apply the image files to the hard-disk partitions by using image-application tools.

The following diagram shows how the fictitious OEM, Fabrikam, deploys a Windows image onto a destination computer, Fabrikam Model FNB1.

If you are deploying images to a computer with multiple hard disks, see these topics to make sure your images are applied to the intended disks.

Manage Multiple BIOS-based Hard Disks	Prepare to deploy images to a computer with multiple BIOS-based hard disks.
Manage Multiple UEFI-based Hard Disks	Prepare to deploy images to a computer with multiple Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI)-based disks.
Understanding Disk Location Paths	Use the physical location path of a disk to identify each disk when deploying images to computers with two or more unique, non-system disks or to computers with multiple UEFI-based disks.

Apply Images by Using ImageX	Apply images by using ImageX, and configure the boot partition by using BCDboot.
Deploy a System Recovery Image	Describes how to deploy a recovery solution to reinstall the factory image in the event of a system failure. This topic describes using Windows RE and custom third-party recovery solutions.