How To Make Vista Bootable DVD with WIM Downloaded Files
If you have purchased Windows Vista online and taken the delivery of the latest operating system via web download from Windows Marketplace, you would ends up with a few downloads with .wim and .exe file extensions. Rather than paying additional shipping and handling charges, you can burn or create a bootable ISO DVD image from downloaded Vista files with the following trick, where the .iso image can subsequently write to a DVD. The DVD created will be the typical 32-bit Windows Vista DVD that available in retail channel, and can be used to clean install.
How to make a bootable Windows Vista ISO DVD media
- Put all 3 downloaded files (namely install.wim, boot.wim and an executable X13-49120.exe) in the same folder (for this tutorial, let’s assume the files are put on C:\ else you need to modify the path accordingly).
- Run the X13-49120.exe executable. Windows Vista Setup Preparation will create a new folder “Vista” inside the folder and will populate the folder with all necessary Vista setup files which takes up about 2.52 GB disk space.
- Exit from the Install Windows screen.
- Download CDimage 2.52.
- Extract CDimage from CDimage.zip to the C:\ root directory.
- Open a command prompt shell, and run the following command:
cdimage.exe -lVISTA_EN_DVD -m -u2 -bC:\Vista\boot\etfsboot.com C:\Vista\ C:\Vistax86.iso
Bootable Windows Vista x86 DVD ISO image in UDF format will be created as vistax86.iso in C:\ or any folder you specified above.
- Burn the newly create ISO with a CD/DVD burning software such as Nero or Alcohol 120%. Try to burn at low speed (i.e. 4X) and turn on verification to ensure that the DVD creation is fine.
Visit here for illustrative guide on using CDImage GUI version to make the bootable DVD ISO.
Create a Windows Vista ISO image and DVD with Oscdimg
Another possible way to create a bootable Vista ISO and DVD is by using Oscdimg CD-ROM and DVD-ROM Premastering Utility, available via WinPE (Windows Preinstallation Environment) via Business Desktop Deployment 2007 or Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK).
- Complete step 1 - 3 as above.
- In the command prompt window, run the following command:
oscdimg -bC:\Vista\boot\etfsboot.com -h -u2 -m -lVISTA_EN_DVD C:\Vista\ C:\VistaDVD.iso
A VistaDVD.iso UDF DVD image will be created and can be used to boot the computer from DVD to install Vista.
- Burn the ISO image file by using last step above.
Visit the guide to create Vista bootable DVD using vLite.
Note: For 64-bit Windows Vista, download etfsboot.com and put it into “\Vista\boot” folder. Or users using WAIK (WinPE), the etfsboot.com can be found at %Programfiles%\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\amd64\boot\ folder. So simply replace -bC:\Vista\boot\etfsboot.com with -bC:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\amd64\boot\etfsboot.com when making 64-bit Vista DVD image.
Share and contribute or get technical support and help at My Digital Life Forums.
Related Articles
- Easy Solution to Unable to Find Downloaded or Created Compatibility Files in Windows Vista
- Illustrative Guide to Create Bootable ISO Image from Vista .WIN Image Files
- How to Create a Bootable USB Flash Drive or USB Key with Vista WinPE 2.0
- Make 64-bit Windows Vista Bootable DVD from Microsoft WIM with vLite Guide
- Favorite TV Shows To Be Downloaded Free from YouTube
- Transfer Files to Vista
- Delete Undeletable Files in Windows Vista
- Ways to Search for Files and Documents in Windows Vista
- Open and View Windows Help .HLP Content Files in Vista
- How to Rename Multiple or A Series of Files in Windows Vista
Entries (RSS)
May 11th, 2007 03:20
[...] My Digital Life ha pubblicato un metodo che consente di creare una immagine ISO DVD avviabile partendo dai file di installazione scaricabili acquistando Windows Vista online tramite Windows Marketplace. Come ho già segnalato i link diretti a questi file di installazione, che vengono forniti da Microsoft ai clienti che scelgono l’opzione d’acquisto via web, sono trapelati in rete. Tutti coloro che procedono all’acquisto in una licenza e di una chiave prodotto di Vista via Internet ricevono gli stessi link al download per 3 file di istallazione del sistema, indipendentemente dalla versione (full o upgrade) o dalla edizione scelta in fase di acquisto. [...]
June 19th, 2007 19:45
Garbage- error upon running the X13-49120.exe …tells me to go to some stupid ms site and ask for help hahaha WHAT!?. Thats a lot of wasted hours for bullcrap that dont work. I noticed that none of the crap here works…from vista to even xp wga fixes…nada.
July 9th, 2007 12:31
Wow this better fucking work or i’m going to rat this site out.
October 2nd, 2007 15:51
Works great, cheers
October 29th, 2007 10:18
thx mAn.. ur my hero nyaknyaknyak!!!
January 6th, 2008 02:34
Thank you so much man, I was looking for a way to get the 64 bit version working. Thank you my friend!
January 8th, 2008 08:14
When I tried using CDImage I received the following: ‘cdimage’ is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. Any thoughts?
February 17th, 2008 04:24
Took a while to get the command correct, you dont explain the command very well, needs some guesswork! But got it to create an image (took ages), but its around 5gb in size, should it be?
Is there any way i can get this size down to a single layer disk?
Cheers
February 27th, 2008 05:03
monkeypoop, you did something wrong somewhere. should have only created iso image of about 2.5GB. I’ve done it myself and everything worked fine except my iso wasn’t bootable for some reason. gonna go back and reread double check where i goofed. I’m thinking it didn’t read the boot secotr image correctly.
March 2nd, 2008 13:08
hi,
do we have to be in a Vista environment in order to create the above? or we can do it from Windows XP as well?
thanx
March 17th, 2008 01:00
I get a 5gb image as well.
Any suggestions?
March 23rd, 2008 15:48
[...] http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/05/10/how-to-make-vista-bootable-dvd-with-wim-downloaded-files/ [...]
March 28th, 2008 01:30
says cannot find the etfsboot.com
?
April 25th, 2008 06:48
Put your files into the root directory of a drive (c:\ or d:\ or e:\ …), then cdimage will create an iso of the correct size.
correct:
D:\>cdimage.exe -lVISTA_EN_DVD -m -u2 -bD:\Vista\boot\etfsboot.com D:\Vista\ D:\Vistax86.iso
CDIMAGE 2.52 CD-ROM and DVD-ROM Premastering Utility
Copyright (C) Microsoft, 1993-2000. All rights reserved.
For Microsoft internal use only.
Scanning source tree complete (614 files in 113 directories)
Computing directory information complete
Image file is 2711650304 bytes
Writing 614 files in 113 directories to D:\Vistax86.iso
wrong:
D:\_vista>cdimage.exe -lVISTA_EN_DVD -m -u2 -bD:\_vista\Vista\boot\etfsboot.com D:\_vista\ D:\Vistax86.iso
CDIMAGE 2.52 CD-ROM and DVD-ROM Premastering Utility
Copyright (C) Microsoft, 1993-2000. All rights reserved.
For Microsoft internal use only.
Scanning source tree complete (619 files in 114 directories)
Computing directory information complete
Image file is 5323587584 bytes
Writing 619 files in 114 directories to D:\Vistax86.iso
April 27th, 2008 21:11
{V [V -( -l -LV |
April 27th, 2008 21:12
Sorry that was weird. What character is that between cdimage.exe and Vista?
May 5th, 2008 11:34
Excellent. Thanks! Works like a charm.
Once problem, if you saved cdimage.exe to the root of your C:\ drive (or whatever you use as your main drive letter.) then you had to add that in front of the first command in the command prompt.
Other than that, great writeup, and my ISO is burning as I am typing this. Hopefully, it will auto boot and I won’t have a problem as the above user did.
Thanks again!
May 9th, 2008 01:20
I get an error message just before the last line that is suppose to say :
Writing 614 files in 113 directories to D:\Vistax86.iso
The error message is as follows:
ERROR: Unable to create file “C:\Vistax86.iso” of 2711650304 bytes
Error5: Access is denied.
I am signed in as the system administrator and I even temporarily turned off my password to see if that was the problem but still no good.
I have a brand new HP DV6871 with over 249gb of free disk space.
What else can I try?
May 13th, 2008 06:00
[...] Information on making a bootable DVD: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/0…nloaded-files/ [...]
May 15th, 2008 04:56
I had the 5gb iso problem, which was solved by moving the files to c:\ and starting again from scratch as mentioned above…
Muchas gracias
October 17th, 2008 13:40
[...] software actually created the bootable ISO file, and I have burned it on my dvd. here is the link How To Make Vista Bootable DVD with WIM Downloaded Files My Digital Life [...]