I didn’t know Macrium Reflect before Claus and Bill recommended it in my review of DriveImageXML. I was so pleased when I tried this backup tool today that I have decided to use it as my own system backup tool for the time being.

Its major advantage over DriveImageXML is that it comes with its own rescue CD, which you need if you have to restore a system drive. It also supports BartPE, but I found the Reflect Rescue CD more convenient. It is Linux-based, so you don’t need a Windows license for it. Its user interface is very easy to use and can be used by anyone who knows how to operate a mouse. By the way, the mouse pointer behaved strangely sometimes in a virtual machine under VMware Workstation 6.5. I didn’t have these problem on physical machine, though.

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Submitted by Kevin Derby

This is a free (for personal use) drive imaging program that backs up systems hot. There’s also a plug-in that allows you to boot from a WinPE/BartPE disk, and restore an image.

Although Win08/Win7 has now changed the backup routine to do this same thing, I hadn’t found any imaging program (for free) to be quite as good as DriveImage XML.

Michael’s notes

I haven’t added this submission to the list of free of admin tools because the program isn’t free for commercial use. Essentially, this means that Windows administrators can’t use the tool at work. I have, however, posted this article, as I find this tool useful.

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Earlier, I blogged about attaching VHD images and WIM files, so it is only fair that I introduce a tool that allows you to mount VMDK (Virtual Machine Disk Format) images. VMware’s format is certainly one of the most commonly used imaging formats these days. The VMware DiskMount GUI is not, despite its name, a VMware tool. It is a DEVFRAM product, and simply consists of a graphical user interface for the command line tool VMware DiskMount (vmware-mount.exe), which is a part of the free VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit. As such, you have to first download and install this toolkit before you can use the VMware DiskMount GUI.

When you first launch the VMware DiskMount GUI, you have to tell the tool where to find vmware-mount.exe. If you installed VMware’s toolkit in the default folder, then you can find it under C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit\bin\. The DiskMount GUI supports all of DiskMount’s command line parameters, including those for remote virtual disks (ESX Server and VirtualCenter).

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WIM2VHD is a new free command line tool that allows you to convert WIM (Windows Imaging Format) images to the VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) format. It is written in JScript and requires Windows 7 and the WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit). The VHD images are sysprepped and can be used to create virtual machines for Hyper-V, Virtual Server 2005 SP1, and Virtual PC 2007. WIM2VHD is helpful if you want to test an OS image with a virtualization tool before deploying it to physical machines.

I tried WIM2VHD with the Windows 7 Beta install.wim. Its usage is very simple. Before you use WIM2VHD, you have to set CScript as your primary script execution environment:

CSCRIPT //h:cscript

To convert the Windows 7 Professional volume image of a .WIM file to a VHD image you have to type:

WIM2VHD.WSF /wim:install.wim /sku:3

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I always have wondered why there is no GUI version for ImageX, Microsoft’s tool for managing WIM images. Now I wonder why I have never heard of GImageX, a free graphic user interface for ImageX. I have to thank Claus Valca, who mentioned it in a comment here on 4sysops.

GImageX requires ImageX because it uses the Microsoft WIMGAPI API, so you have to install the WAIK before using GImageX. GImageX supports all important ImageX features. The only command I didn’t find is the /dir option, which lists the complete contents of a volume image. This feature is useful only in scripts anyway. If you want to display an image’s directory structure, you better mount it to a folder.

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Update: The free Gizmo Central allows you to mount VHD files more conveniently.

The more I play with Windows 7, the more I like it. There are so many tiny improvements that can turn out to be very helpful. One of these features is the ability to attach (mount) VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) files. You might think that you don’t need this feature because you don’t use one of Microsoft’s virtualization solutions (Hyper-V, Virtual PC, Virtual Server). However, there is another reason why the ability to mount a VHD can be useful.

The Windows 7 backup tool, which allows you to create a system image, also uses the VHD format. This backup program was introduced in Windows Vista and has been improved significantly in Windows 7. I have always been wondering why I can’t access single files in an entire computer backup. In my opinion, it doesn’t make sense to have two kinds of backup jobs, one for my personal files and one for the system. If I already have a copy of all my files, why do I need another backup?

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In my last post, I wrote about DISM’s (Deployment Image Servicing and Management) Vista compatibility and its relation to imageX. Today I will post some examples that will show you how to mount a WIM image, how to gather information about an image, and how to service images with DISM.

Before you start working with an image, you might want to have some information about the image. The following command retrieves information about the OS images that are contained within a WIM file. As you probably know, a WIM image can contain multiple OS images.

dism /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:d:\sources\install.wim

I used Windows 7 Beta’s WIM file, which you can find in the “sources” folders on the DVD. If you add the command line option /index plus the image’s index number, you will get information about a specific image such as the OS version, size, installed service pack, etc. (see screenshot).

dism /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:d:\sources\install.wim /index:4

Before you can work with a WIM image, you have to mount it to a folder. DSM’s syntax differs from that of imageX. Perhaps DSM’s is easier to read in scripts, but it also requires more typing work, than imageX’s:

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DISM (Deployment Image Servicing and Management) is a new command line tool of the Windows 7 WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit). It is interesting to note that it is also delivered with Windows 7. In this post I make some general remarks about the tool, in particular, about its compatibility with Vista and how it relates to imageX, another important WAIK tool. In my next post I will give some examples of DISM commands.

DISM replaces the Package Manager (pkgmgr.exe), PEimg and Intlcfg in the Vista WAIK. Package Manager is a command-line tool that allows you to install and configure OS updates, packages and drivers on an offline OS image. PEimg is for creating and modifying Windows PE 2.0 images offline and Intlcfg is used to change the language and locale, fonts and input settings on a Windows image.

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In my last post, I discussed some of the new features in imageX for Windows 7. Today, I want to talk about the new switches in imageX

I copied the imageX help file entries of the new command-line options and added some comments.

imagex /cleanup
Deletes all the resources associated with a mounted image that has been abandoned. This command will not unmount currently mounted images, nor will it delete images that can be recovered via the imagex /remount command.

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Together with Windows 7, Microsoft will release a new Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK). The most prominent tool in WAIK is certainly imageX which is used to capture and modify Windows images. There are some new features in imageX which I will discuss today. In my next post, I will write about the new command-line switches of Windows 7 imageX.

Note that imageX which will not be replaced by the new DISM tool (Deployment Image Servicing and Management) as some sites reported. I will cover DISM which also belongs to the WAIK in another post.

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BDD 2007 is an essential tool and documentation set for deploying Windows Vista. Almost two months after the release of the business edition of Vista, its final version is finally ready for download. BDD 2007 contains important tools like ImageX and Windows System Image Manager (WSIM). I’ve been writing about some of the tools before. Please check out the Related section below.

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There are two versions of XXClone, a free one and a pro edition. The pro edition has some additional features which are useful if you want to be able to schedule the creation of images.

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Windows Connected has six useful tips for admins dealing with Vista’s new imaging technology: Script Everything, Automate Your Installs, Virtual Machines make it easy, Minimize Drivers in your reference Image, Keep a build document, Hardware.

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David D’Souza, the Director of Development in the Windows Core OS Division, wrote an article about the reasons why Microsoft used imaging technology for the setup process of Windows Vista. It is interesting to note that installation speed seems to be the main advantage in his view. We use imaging technology since we deploy Windows NT, and performance was never the reason why we preferred it over unattended installations.

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The Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007 includes many important tools for Windows Vista deployment. Most important is the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) which contains ImageX, Microsoft’s new imaging tool, and Windows Deployment Services (WDS), the successor of Remote Installation Services (RIS). Please check out my summary about Windows Vista’s deployment tools for more information. BDD 2007 Beta 2 extends Beta 1 with a couple of new features.

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