How to Create a Windows 7 Universal Installation Disc

Introduction

For Windows users who installed or upgraded Windows Vista, there is one big difference
that will be immediately noticed when installing or upgrading to Windows 7: The
Windows 7 installation wizard no longer prompts, or asks, for the user to select which
edition of the operating system to install. Instead, each Windows 7 DVD disc will
automatically install the specific edition which its limited to. So a Windows 7 Home
Premium disc will only install Windows 7 HP, a Pro disc will only install Pro, etc.

Although Microsoft does not provide any such universal Windows 7 installation media,
the function is indeed feasible. (see Screenshot below) A disc such as this can be
especially helpful to PC technicians, IT staff, and the like who need to reinstall Win7
frequently. Remember you will still need a valid license key specific to the version you
are installing. In addition, Microsoft has eliminated the differences between the retail and
OEM install discs with Windows 7, so this disc can be used to reinstall Win7 on PCs
where the owner has lost, or is unable to find, the OEM restore discs. In order to create
such a disc; just delete and remove the ei.cfg from any Windows 7 ISO to convert that
image into a universal disc for all editions of Windows 7.
STAGE 1 UNIVERSAL DVD - ALL 32 OR 64 BIT ON 1 DVD

For any user who has the Windows 7 install DVD or ISO and wishes to make a universal
installer disc now there is an easier way to modify the ISO. Normally this was
accomplished by manually unpacking and extracting the contents of the ISO image (or
copying files from DVD to HDD), deleting the ei.cfg and then repacking the installation
files back into an ISO to burn. Users can now eliminate these tedious procedures by
making use of the ei.cfg Removal Utility.

The ei.cfg Removal Utility is a simple tool that will disable the ei.cfg from any Windows 7
ISO disc image, thereby converting the image into a universal disc that will prompt the
user to select their preferred edition during setup. The ei.cfg Removal Utility works
directly to patch the ISO image, by toggling the deletion bit in the UDF file table to
instruct the operating system to ignore and remove ei.cfg, or treat it as if it does not
exist. Best of all, the ei.cfg Removal Utility can reverse the patching to restore the ISO
disc image to its original state when the tool is been used to apply on a disc image that
previously been patched by the utility.

The ei.cfg Removal Utility is a standalone portable app, and requires no installation. In
fact, the program does not have much of a user interface at all. Simply selecting the
target Windows 7 ISO, and the disc image (ISO) will be patched right away. So make
sure a backup copy of your ISO is created beforehand.

Download the ei.cfg Removal Utility here:eicfg_removal_utility.zip

STAGE 2 UNIVERSAL DVD - ALL 32 AND ALL 64 BIT ON 1 DVD

I was amazed at how easy it is to merge Win7 x86 and Win7 x64 editions (DVDs) in a
single DVD or 4GB USB. The process is pretty simple, you need a copy of both any 32 bit
and any 64 bit Windows 7 install DVD or ISO. Either copy the DVD's contents to a folder
on a HDD, or extract the ISO's contents to a folder. Run 4 commands from the prompt,
then create and burn your new Universal install DVD/USB.

Requirements:
1. WAIK (Windows Automation Installation Kit) Download WAIK
2. Windows Win7 x86 and Windows Win7 x64 DVDs.
3. An application that can extract the files from an ISO (if using a downloaded ISO).
I use WinRAR, but many apps can do this extraction.
4. An application that allows you to build a new iso or create a bootable DVD/USB. I
use UltraISO for this.
5. Single Layer DVD, compatible DVD Burner and, of course DVD burning software
or a 4GB USB flash drive.
We will merge the four Windows 7 x64 editions into the Win7 x86 DVD contents, because
Win7 x64 DVD has 64-bit content that cant run some of the Win32 installation
components.
Getting Started

1. Install WAIK in your Windows (doesnt matter you are running Win7 or Windows XP)

2. Make two folders, in my examples I use Win7_64 and Win7_32. Now copy both
Windows 7 x64 and x86 DVDs contents into their respective folders. Or extract your
downloaded ISOs into their respective folder.

Note
If copying files over from a DVD to the above folders, you actually only need the
Sources\install.wim file from the Windows 7 x64 DVD.

3. Run WAIK command prompt (Run as Administrator if UAC enabled):

Start All Programs Windows AIK Windows AIK and PE Command Prompt

4. Each and every Win7 edition has an index no. in the install.wim (WIM file), you can
check using the following command:
Code:

Imagex/info G:\Win7_32\Sources\install.wim

Note
Where G:\Win7_32 represents the location of your 32 bit DVD files
The results will look something like above.
This shows that INDEX=1 denotes Windows 7 Starter and so on (you may have to
scroll down to observe these entries)

5. We will use the Imagex /export command to move our x64 WIM entries into the x86
wim file.
 Note
The syntax for this command is:
imagex /export src_file src_number src_name dest_file dest_name

Now execute the following commands with appropriate INDEX no. to export a copy of the
specified image to the Windows 7 32bit (x86) WIM file.

For Win7 Home Basic x64:

Code:

Imagex/export G:\Win7_64\Sources\install.wim 1 G:\Win7_32\Sources\install.wim

"Windows 7 Home Basic (x64)"

For Win7 Home Premium x64:

Code:

Imagex/export G:\Win7_64\Sources\install.wim 2 G:\Win7_32\Sources\install.wim

"Windows 7 Home Premium (x64)"

For Win7 Professional x64:

Code:

Imagex/export G:\Win7_64\Sources\install.wim 3 G:\Win7_32\Sources\install.wim

"Windows 7 Professional (x64)"

For Win7 Ultimate x64:

Code:

Imagex /export G:\Win7_64\Sources\install.wim 4

G:\Win7_32\Sources\install.wim "Windows 7 Ultimate (x64)"

6. After execution of above commands Win7_32's WIM file will be the universal WIM file
that contains all version of Win7. You can export only desired versions into the image.
For example you could make a Win7 DVD, which includes Win7 Ultimate x86 and x64
version only.

7. Now to make bootable DVD image...