Editing the Registry in an ImageX .wim file

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I was emailed this question recently “Is it possible to make changes to settings in the registry of an ImageX .wim file or do I have to deploy the .wim file, make the changes and then recapture the image?”

Wow, great question!! I knew it could be done, but wasn't sure exactly how. A quick search on the web brought me to this blog post (big thank you to Michael Greene!!!).

From that blog post I have listed the five basic steps necessary:

 

1. Mount the WIM file to a local folder using ImageX:

C:\>imagex /mountrw install.wim 1 c:\mount

2. Load the registry hive you need. Let's mount HKLM\Software:

C:\mount>reg load HKLM\test c:\mount\windows\system32\config\software

3. Open Regedit to make changes or use Reg Add from the command line.

4. Unload the reg hive.

C:\Windows\system32>reg unload HKLM\test

5. Unmount the image.

C:\ImageX>imagex /unmount /commit c:\mount

Amazingly simple, no??