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What Is Deployment Image Servicing and Management?

  • Article

3/21/2011

Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) is a command-line tool that can be used to service a Windows Embedded Standard 7 image or to prepare a Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) 3.0 image.

Benefits

In Windows Embedded Standard 7, you can use DISM to do the following:

  • Add, remove, and enumerate packages.
  • Add, remove, and enumerate drivers.
  • Enable or disable Standard 7 features.
  • Apply changes based on the offlineServicing section of an Unattend.xml answer file.
  • Configure international settings.
  • Prepare a Windows PE image.
  • Troubleshoot more effectively with better log files.
  • Service all platforms (32-bit, 64-bit).
  • Service a 32-bit image from a 64-bit host, and service a 64-bit image from a 32-bit host. For more information, see the "Limitations" section later in this topic.

Common Servicing and Management Scenarios

Image servicing and management solutions fall into the following two main categories:

  • Managing the data or information included in the Standard 7 image, such as enumerating or taking an inventory of the components, updates, drivers, or applications contained in an image.
  • Servicing the image itself, including adding or removing driver packages and drivers, modifying language settings, and enabling or disabling Standard 7 features.

The following table outlines the common scenarios for servicing and management.

Task Management Servicing

List all images within a .wim file.

X

 

Prepare a Windows PE image.

 

X

List information about a Standard 7 image.

X

 

List specific information about a mounted image, including where it is mounted, the index of each image in a .wim file, and the mount status.

X

 

List all drivers in an image, or information about a specific driver.

X

 

Add an out-of-box or boot-critical driver to support new hardware.

 

X

Add operating system updates such as hotfixes and Standard 7 features.

 

X

Add or remove a language pack, and configure international settings.

 

X

List all international settings and languages in an image.

X

 

Troubleshooting through integrated status and logging.

X

X

List all features in a package or specific information about a Standard 7 feature.

X

 

Apply settings in an Unattend.xml answer file.

 

X

Limitations

Remote Installation. Installing packages to a remote computer over a network is not supported. The Standard 7 image must be present on the local system. DISM can access packages on a network share but it must copy them to a temporary, writable scratch directory. We recommend using a unique scratch directory on a local drive for each package you install. The contents of the scratch directory can be deleted after installation.

Answer File. When you specify an answer file (Unattend.xml) for an image, only the settings specified in the offlineServicing configuration pass are applied. All other settings in the answer file are ignored. For more information, see Unattended Servicing Command-Line Options.

File Types. DISM can install only .cab files, .msu files, and .inf files.

Use an answer file to ensure package dependencies are met. Some packages require other packages to be installed first. Because of this dependency, you should use an answer file if you are installing multiple packages. By applying an answer file using DISM, multiple packages can be installed in the correct order. This is the preferred method for installing multiple packages.

Package installation order. Packages are installed in the order they are listed in the command line.

Supported servicing commands are dynamic. The commands and options available for servicing an image depend on which Standard 7 operating system you are servicing, and whether it is an offline image or a currently running operating system.

Multiple unattend files are not supported. You can specify more than one driver or package on a command line. However, multiple Unattend.xml answer files are not supported. Only a single answer file can be specified on any command line.

Multiple servicing commands are not supported. You can specify multiple drivers or packages but you cannot specify multiple commands (such as /Add-Driver /Remove-Driver or /Add-Driver /Add-Package) on the same command line.

Logging to a network share. When you use a computer that is not joined to a network domain, you must use net use with domain credentials to set access permissions before you specify the path for the DISM log stored on the network share.

Wildcards. Wildcards are not supported in DISM command line operations.

Unattended Installation Answer File

When an answer file is applied by using DISM, the updates that are specified in the answer file are implemented on the Windows image or the running operating system. You can configure default Windows settings, add drivers, packages, software updates, and other applications by using the settings in an answer file.

ImageX

ImageX is a command-line tool that can be used to mount an image, or to apply an image to a drive, so that it can be modified with the DISM command-line utility. After the image is modified, you can use ImageX to capture the image, append the image to a Windows image (WIM) file, or export the image as a separate file. If you do not need to capture, append, or export the image after you modify it, you should use DISM to mount the image instead of using ImageX. For more information, see ImageX Technical Reference.

See Also

Concepts

How Deployment Image Servicing and Management Works
Deployment Image Servicing and Management Command-Line Options

Other Resources

Deployment Image Servicing and Management Technical Reference