WIM Installer

WIM Installer is a lightweight application that aims to help you install a WIM image by using a simple interface. It allows you to easily select the WIM file and select the operating system version without having to deal with the command line interface.

Windows Imaging Format (WIM) is a disk image format that allows you to optimize the used space by providing high compression ratios. The format was introduced by Microsoft in order to facilitate the deployment of the Windows operating system for computer manufacturers.

Since it uses a file-based technology, WMI files enable you to create images for the operating system and deploy them on multiple computers. Although it might not seem important to home users, installing and configuring the OS for multiple computers can take a lot of time.

Installing the operating system from a WIM file offers the possibility to personalize the additional programs, drivers and files that should be available for the user.

In order to capture, edit and deploy the disk images, you need to use ImageX which is a command line tool. If you are not comfortable with the command line interface, WIM Installer aims to provide you with a graphical interface.

The main window is simple and allows you to select the volumes detected in the WIM image and the destination partition. After clicking the Install button, the GUI sends the commands to the ImageX tool.

However, the program can only provide access to some of the ImageX functions which limits its usage to only deploying the WIM file. If you want to create the deployment package you still need to deal with the command line interface.

If you only need to deploy a Windows Imaging Format file, the WIM Installer can prevent errors in entering the command line arguments. However, if you are not familiar with the ImageX command arguments, you are probably not using WIM files to deploy Windows.