Creating a Windows-To-Go USB Drive from a WIM Windows Image

At a recent Microsoft Cloud workshop, we were given a WIM image file to create a Bootable "Windows-to-Go" Windows 8 USB drive with a pre-configured Office 365 demo tool to be used along with our provisioned Windows Azure Office 365 Demo in order to demonstrate for our clients a working Office365 environment.

We also were given a Kingston Data Traveler 32 GB drive that is certified for Windows 8 Enterprise "Windows-to-Go".

The only issue is now how to get the 5 GB WIM image file that we were given onto the Data Traveler USB drive so that we can boot any device into the Virtual Windows 8 environment in order to demonstrate Office365 to our clients.

Within Windows 7 Professional, there is of course no file association with *.wim image files and though we have used tools like ImgBurn to burn ISO images onto DVD's, we have never dealt with creating a bootable USB drive from a Windows Image File (WIM). Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

iTrust-ITAsked: 2012-12-22

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LVL 14

Rob MinersConnect With a Mentor Commented: 2012-12-22

Check this article

Windows To Go Step by Step

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/6991.windows-to-go-step-by-step-en-us.aspx

LVL 6

Leon TealeConnect With a Mentor Penetration TesterCommented: 2012-12-22

best way to createa bootable windows usb is:

win2flash

http://wintoflash.com/home/en/

its awesome i use it all the time for windows 7. instructions and guides are on the site also. defo recomended

iTrust-ITAuthor Commented: 2012-12-27

Great. We appreciate the help. We'll try these and then report back and hand out points and such. :-)

iTrust-ITAuthor Commented: 2012-12-28

Both of these were great advice on how to get to the goal. Along the way, I found the link below which is a pretty nice step-by-step for this procedure:

http://tweaks.com/windows/52279/how-to-create-a-windows-to-go-usb-drive/

iTrust-ITAuthor Commented: 2012-12-28

LVL 14

Rob MinersCommented: 2012-12-28

Nice find, step by step and easy to follow. :) Good to see you sorted. :)

iTrust-ITAuthor Commented: 2012-12-30

Here's the shortcut that I used to ultimately accomplish the goal of getting a WIM image file transferred successfully to a Kingston DT Ultimate 32 GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive:

I used a program called GImageX, which is a GUI built with AutoIT on top of the familiar ImageX tool that uses a command-line interface to apply *.WIM Windows Images to USB Drives and otherwise work with WIM files, including the ability to get Image Info from the WIM file and mount it as appropriate.

Link to GImageX below:

GImageX Download

1) Format USB Drive with NTFS Quick.

2) Opening GImageX, you then choose the “Info” tab and browse to the location of your WIM file.

3) The GImageX will show how many images are contained in the file.

4) Then, go to the “Apply” tab, select the browse for your WIM file for “Source”, select the USB drive as the “Destination”, then make sure the appropriate “image” is selected (1, 2, 3,
4, etc).

5) Click “Apply” and the image will start transferring to the USB Drive.

6) Once complete, click "OK" and exit GImageX.

7) Use the option to safely remove the USB Drive.