First you need to decide if you want only a custom image or do you want multiple image options to choose from.

What you will need:

  • One USB flash drive formatted to NTFS to hold your custom image
  • Windows 10 DVD or Bootable Flash drive to boot into Windows PE
  • Second laptop to manage the images

Single Image

  • Format a flash drive to NTFS
  • Download the Windows 10 ISO from the windows media creation tool located here
  • Mount the ISO and copy the information into a temporary folder
  • open sources folder and delete install.esd (we are creating our own custom image so don’t need this)
  • Copy the information from the temporary folder to your flash drive and you can delete the temp folder
  • Customize windows how you want shut it down and boot into Windows PE
  • Open a command prompt window (Going off memory click Install then Advanced Options>Command Prompt)
  • Normally I go through the drive letters and dir to show the contents till I find the USB stick I want to put my image on
  • In this example my the USB drive I want to put my custom image on is letter F
  • I will then run this command:
Dism /Capture-Image /ImageFile:F:\sources\install.wim /CaptureDir:c:\ /Compress:fast /CheckIntegrity /Name:"WIN10 Custom" /Description:"WIN10 Custom with Pre-loaded Software"

Multiple Images

  • Format a flash drive to NTFS
  • Download the Windows 10 ISO from the windows media creation tool located here
  • Mount the ISO and copy the information into a temporary folder (C:\Temp\Vanilla in my example)
  • Next run this command to list the Indexes in the image
dism /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:C:\Temp\Vanilla\Sources\install.esd
  • I am interested only in Index 6 Windows 10 Pro so that is what I will be using in my example

  • Here is the command I will use to export Index 6 out so I can have a vanilla option on my custom USB drive:
Dism /Export-Image /SourceImageFile:C:\Temp\Vanilla\Sources\install.esd /SourceIndex:6 /DestinationImageFile:C:\Images\install.wim /Compress:fast /CheckIntegrity /DestinationName:"W10 PRO version 20H2 x64 (original)"
  • Normally I create a Backup folder and create a Vanilla folder and copy the WIM file in there so I don’t have to do it again if I mess up (C:\Images\Backup\Vanilla\install.wim)
  • Next customize windows how you want shut it down and boot into Windows PE
  • Open a command prompt window (Going off memory click Install then Advanced Options>Command Prompt)
  • Normally I go through the drive letters and dir to show the contents till I find the USB stick I want to put my image on
  • In this example my the USB drive I want to put my custom image on is letter F
  • Then run this command to capture the image:
Dism /Capture-Image /ImageFile:F:\install.wim /CaptureDir:c:\ /Compress:fast /CheckIntegrity /Name:"WIN10 Custom" /Description:"WIN10 Custom with Pre-loaded Software"
  • This can take about an hour but once it is done copy the created image to your images directory C:\Images\Custom\install.wim (I also copy this to the backup folder C:\Images\Backup\Custom\Install.wim)
  • Now we can merge our custom image into the vanilla image with this command:
Dism /Export-Image /SourceImageFile:C:\Images\Custom\install.wim /SourceIndex:1 /DestinationImageFile:C:\Images\install.wim /DestinationName:"WIN10 x64 PRO (XPS 13 Drivers Installed and Default Software)"
  • You can verify your custom image but checking what indexes are there like so:
dism /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:C:\Images\install.wim
  • The information should show two indexes one for W10 PRO version 20H2 x64 (original) and one for (XPS 13 Drivers Installed and Default Software)
  • Now we can delete C:\Temp\Vanilla\Sources\install.esd
  • I am going to rename C:\Temp\Vanilla to C:\Temp\Custom
  • Copy your custom C:\Images\install.wim to C:\Temp\Custom\sources
  • Finally copy all of the contents of C:\Temp\Custom to a flash drive
  • Once it is done put the NTFS USB stick in a computer and boot from it to install your custom image (UEFI)
  • You can keep adding images by repeating the above steps for each image you want

References:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/deploy-a-custom-image
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/133098-dism-create-bootable-iso-multiple-windows-10-images.html
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/118137-create-bootable-usb-installer-if-install-wim-greater-than-4gb.html
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/deploy-a-custom-image
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/insider_wintp-insider_install-insiderplat_pc/the-problems-between-installwim-and-installesd-and/339846cc-d4e8-4f76-a31c-1d4d7bd21371
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000023992/memory-and-storage/intel-optane-memory.html