WIM to VHD converter

Way back I wrote about some tools used to convert VHD to VMDK or the other way around. There is another interesting tool, especially for those experimenting with Hyper-V and Microsoft based hypervizor.

This is a tool that allows you to take the WIM file off of a Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 install DVD and turn it directly into a virtual hard disk that can be used by Hyper-V, Virtual Server or Virtual PC.  Not only is this usefull, but it is really *fast*.  Usually under 10 minutes to get up and running.

When attaching the VHD and booting up, VHDs created by WIM2VHD will boot directly to the Out Of Box Experience, ready for your first-use customizations. The tool allows creation of  sysprepped VHD images from any Windows 7 installation source. (haven't tested W8, but I suppose it works as well).

Now being a VMware admin, you might not find it as useful as that, but I've found it kind of cool, and just to get the possibility to do it…

Requirements:

• Computer running one of the following Windows operating systems:
• Windows 7 RTM
• Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM
• Windows Server 2008 SP2 with Hyper-V RTM enabled (x64 only)
• The Windows 7 Automated Installation Kit (AIK) or Windows OEM Pre-Installation Kit (OPK) installed.
• A Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 installation source, or another Windows image captured to a .WIM file.

Example:

Create a Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Standard VHD with an automatically generated name:

CSCRIPT WIM2VHD.WSF /WIM:X:\sources\install.wim /SKU:SERVERSTANDARD

Now, the tools is not one the newest one, and the author's blog has just died….

You can find more examples and how-to usages at the source at MSDN. Download the command line tool from here: https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/wim2vhd

Author's blog: https://blogs.msdn.com/b/mikekol/