Easily add drivers and updates to images with GUI DISM

7/29/2012

by Paul Siegel

One of the greatest advantages to using Microsoft for Imaging is the ability to perform offline image patching and keep images up to date rather than rebuilding your base image every time a major update or service pack is released. Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) is the command line used to carry out these functions. If beginners are more accustomed to other tools like Ghost Explorer or ZMG Explorer, then GUI DISM will make you feel right at home.

DISM GUI can downloaded from Mike's Blog at http://mikecel79.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/dism-gui-3-1/

Updating an Image

Create a folder for use as a mount point and then launch GUI DISM. Select the image file you wish to update under the Wim File heading and the folder you created under the Mount Location Heading. Then click Mount WIM. You should recieve a success message in the DISM Output pane.

Select the Drive Management Tab to the right of the default tab (Mount Control.) To add drivers to your image they must be extracted to their lowest .inf form, not as an executable. In the Add Drivers area select the folder where your drivers have been extracted. Check 'Force Unsigned' if necessary for the driver. In the image below the driver files to the left are an example of extracted drivers.

Click Add Drivers and the following window will appear:

This may run for some time depending on how many drivers are in the folder that was selected. You will know it has completed by watching the DISM Output pane. The DISM is Running progress window will close and the Output will look something like this:

Switch back to Mount Control tab and click Dismount Wim. You will be prompted asking if you want to commit changes to the wim. Select Yes and the wim image will be updated with the drivers you've chosen to inject into the wim. If you realize a mistake at this point you can select no and changes will be discarded.

Again the DISM is Running window will appear for a while and once complete check the Output pane for any final error to make sure the operation completed successfully and wim is dismounted.

GUI DISM is a great tool for those who have not yet achieved "Zero Cool" status with a command prompt. Adding windows updates is completed using the same process under the Package Management tab. For updates this tool allows the injecting of .msp (windows installer patches) and .msu (microsoft updates) Thanks to mikecel79 for this great tool and please check out his blog at http://mikecel79.wordpress.com/

10 Comments

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04/26/2013 8:38am

Wow! This is the type of site I am interested in and I like the computer help tips you have shared. I am a regular follower of your blog and the comments are equally important. I have saved your page for my further visits and refer to my friends. Keep it up.

Karl link

05/29/2013 7:29am

Hello,
maybe you can spend some words on how to delete drivers.
I want to delete several old nvidia-drivers but don't manage.
If I tell the programm the name of the folders, he can't find them (don't know why). The 'path' is also not accepted.
What 'Driver Name' must I write, that the programm finds them?
Thanks.

super

06/17/2013 8:02am

third party drivers are renamed to oem1.inf, oem2.inf in that order depending on which driver you added first.

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07/04/2013 7:14pm

I followed all the steps but I can't install it, this appears: INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE.

What can I do?

Paul Siegel link

07/05/2013 9:14am

Sounds like mass storage drivers are not importing or are not the correct device driver. If your sure the driver is correct try checking the force unsigned checkbox that should force the import.

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09/29/2013 8:05am

very good program to install and update drivers. but windows 7 and 8 by themselves set the correct driver.

chris gamage

02/11/2014 12:28am

very good tool...thnaks

Vince Parro

06/10/2014 5:54pm

I am getting the following error. The log file refers to not being able to DISM Manager: PID=3808 Failed to create unique image session lock name for DISM located.

Command line that ran is dism.exe /image:"C:\Mounted" /Get-Drivers /All

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 6.1.7600.16385

Error: 0x801f0005

An error occurred while attempting to start the servicing process for the image located at C:\Mounted.
For more information, review the log file.

The DISM log file can be found at C:\Windows\Logs\DISM\dism.log

Any idea? Been searching for hours. Others have issue, but found no solution.

Dee link

01/28/2015 11:33am

Hi I have used the WSUS offline tool to download the latest updates for my Windows 7 image (updates downloaded to local c drive of my pc). I have a win 7 wim image captured with Decembers updates applied so I have about 3 months of updates to add to the image now. Is DISM GUI clever enough to know what updates have already been installed on the image and only install the updates I have missed between last image capture (in December) without breaking my image? I really don't like the idea of having to deploy the captured image from Dec and manually search for the missing updates that have been released by MS since then, against the updates installed on the the image in December. Hope this makes sense.Cheers D

Paul Siegel link

01/28/2015 9:21pm

Each update at heart is an msp or msi so it has a guid associated with it. I'm not sure if applying it twice causes it to reinstall , but it would be no different than a repair switch on an msi at worst. I wouldn't see a problem with it. Make a back up of the wim first and the rest should be fine.