Using DISM to deploy RSAT to a Windows 7 Image

 

RSAT

The RSAT ( Remote Server Administration Tools ) is provided by Microsoft as an standalone update, a .msu file. This can be downloaded and installed individually on a machine. Once installed it becomes functionally be enabling it as a feature. To install it is just a matter of double clicking the msu file and Windows Update will take over.

Can we incorporate this into an Image?

Well of course and if you are into ultra-thin images it can be built into the standard install.wim from the Windows 7 DVD. This then can make up your installation customized the way that you need. To service the image without having to install it we use the dism command that is part of the Imaging Toolkit: WAIK.

Create your custom installation DVD

The first step is to create a working area on a PC with the WAIK installed. WAIK provides the WISM program to create and edit the answer file and also the tool we use to make the ISO once we have added the answer file.

1. Create your working directory. I would suggest  something similar to this: md c:\working\iso and md c:\working\mount
2. Copy the contents of your Windows 7 DVD to c:\working\iso
3. Copy your downloaded RSAT msu into the c:\working directory
4. The boot file required to make a bootable DVD needs to be in the c:\working directory: copy c:\working\ISO\boot\etfsboot.com c:\working
5. Open the WAIK Deployment command prompt as administrator and use the dism command to mount and service the image
6. cd c:\working
7. dism /Mount-Wim /Wimfile:ISO/Source/install.wim /index:1 /MountDir:mount
8. dism /Image:mount  /Add-Package /PackagePath:RSAT.msu
9. dism /Unmount-Wim /MountDir:mount /commit
10. No if required create your Custom DVD with RSAT installed ( not enabled )
11. Oscdimg -m -n -o -b”etfsboot.com” iso customwin7.iso
12. Options:
    1. -m ignore max size warning
    2. -n allow long file names
    3. -o optimize storage size
    4. -b bootfile name
    5. Iso is the directory we are burning to ISO
    6. Customwin7.iso is the target iso filename

Now you have a Windows 7 iso that can be installed from or burned to DVD that has your corporate answer file build in to it and quite a simple process to build this with free tools from Microsoft. Or just use the install.wim with your MDT or SCCM deployments