ImageX for Windows 7 – new command-line options

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Michael Pietroforte

Michael Pietroforte is the founder and editor in chief of 4sysops. He has more than 35 years of experience in IT management and system administration.

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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.

This cleanup process also runs when you unmount an image. It is probably the reason why it takes much longer to unmount an unmodified image. In my test environment, it took imageX 55 seconds to unmount the original install.wim of Windows 7.

imagex /commit {/append image name}
Saves changes to a mounted .wim file without unmounting the .wim file. You can also set the following option:
/append Appends the mounted image to the existing .wim file. If you use this option, you must specify a name for the new image. For example,
imagex /commit C:\mounted_images
imagex /commit /append C:\mounted_images new_image

I think that this is an important enhancement of imageX. In the Vista version, it was only possible to save the changes to images by unmounting it. If you forgot to add the /commit switch to the unmount command, then you would lose all changes . The append switch is useful, too. It allows you to pack up multiple images in one wim file easily.

imagex /command_line option /logfile
/logfile filename.log
A plain text file that stores ImageX command events.

Most of the imageX command line options allow you now to log all events. This can be helpful if problems occur.

imagex /command_line option /temp
Specifies the path where temporary files are stored.

I am not 100% sure about the temp switch that most imageX commands have now. The temp folder is on the host and not in the image. So, I guess, it is just the place where imageX stores temporary data. ImageX probably will use the directory that has been specified in the temp environment variable, If you don't add this parameter.

imagex /remount image_path {/logfile filename.log}
Recovers an orphaned mount path. This option is not supported from a rebooted Windows PE environment.
image_path The path to be remounted. If not specified, lists all images. For example,
imagex /remount C:\mounted_images

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. For example,
imagex /remount C:\mounted_images

I would never be so cruel as to abandon an image to make it an orphan. So I am uncertain about the purpose of these two new switches. 😉 As far as I understand, these options can be used if you didn't unmount an image before you restarted the computer.