Downloading Windows 10 Enterprise

Download Windows Media Creation Tool

Open Powershell and use it to launch the tool with these options. You can either use a relative or absolute path for the exe file. An easy way to get the path of a file is to hold in shift and right click, then select “Copy as path” in File Explorer.

#
 Make sure to change the language code to your liking, I have selected en-US. If you are on 32-bit you can use x84.
C:\Users\Felix\Downloads\
MediaCreationTool21H1.exe
 
/
Eula Accept 
/
Retail 
/
MediaLangCode en
-
US 
/
MediaArch x64 
/
MediaEdition Enterprise

Select the ISO option if you want to continue and customize/preinstall drivers, if you simply want a bootable USB with stock Enterprise you can select it here and you are done!

When asked for a key, you can use an official KMS key from Microsoft. The current one as of writing for Windows 10 Enterprise is NPPR9-FWDCX-D2C8J-H872K-2YT43.

Mount the ISO

install.esd is a compressed install image which contains various versions of the operating system. To customize our image we need to export it to .wim. It will contain the specific image(s) that we are looking to utilize.

Mount the ISO by clicking on it. This should mount the image to a drive letter which you can access. To get information about which Windows versions your ISO contains, use

#
 Use your own path here, simply change out the drive letter to the one your mount was assigned to. Check File Explorer -> "This PC".
dism.exe
 
/
Get-WimInfo
 
/
WimFile:D:\sources\install.esd

The command should return an indexed list like this.

Details 
for
 image : D:\sources\install.esd

Index : 
1
Name : Windows 
10
 Education
Description : Windows 
10
 Education
Size : 
15
,
736
,
130
,
486
 bytes

Index : 
2
Name : Windows 
10
 Education N
Description : Windows 
10
 Education N
Size : 
14
,
956
,
748
,
370
 bytes

Index : 
3
Name : Windows 
10
 Enterprise
Description : Windows 
10
 Enterprise
Size : 
15
,
736
,
284
,
481
 bytes

Index : 
4
Name : Windows 
10
 Enterprise N
Description : Windows 
10
 Enterprise N
Size : 
14
,
956
,
654
,
647
 bytes

Index : 
5
Name : Windows 
10
 Pro
Description : Windows 
10
 Pro
Size : 
15
,
734
,
489
,
825
 bytes

Index : 
6
Name : Windows 
10
 Pro N
Description : Windows 
10
 Pro N
Size : 
14
,
959
,
031
,
814
 bytes

Note down the index of the version you want to use. I want to use Enterprise so my index is 3.

Export install.wim from install.esd

Next we convert install.esd to install.win so we can modify it.

Background

.esd is a highly compressed format that usually contains a collection of various images as shown above. This format is ideal when installing due to its small size but makes it hard to manipulate using current tooling, so we will convert the image we want to use to .wim.

#
 Make sure to switch out SourceIndex to the index you want to use. Same goes for paths
 
dism.exe
 
/
Export-Image
 
/
SourceImageFile:D:\sources\install.esd 
/
SourceIndex:
3
 
/
DestinationImageFile:
"
C:\BigWork\install.wim
"
 
/
Compress:max 
/
CheckIntegrity

We should now have an install.wim file exported at our specified path, now we can add our packages or drivers to this image before making it bootable.

You can verify that the exported install.wim contains the the correct image version.

 Dism 
/
Get-ImageInfo
 
/
ImageFile:C:\BigWork\install.wim

Output example

Details 
for
 image : C:\install.wim

Index : 
1
Name : Windows 
10
 Enterprise
Description : Windows 
10
 Enterprise
Size : 
15
,
736
,
284
,
481
 bytes

We can now mount this image to a folder. Create a folder and mount install.wim to it.

#
 Use the exact name from previous check or use /Index:1
 Dism 
/
Mount-Image
 
/
ImageFile:C:\BigWork\install.wim 
/
Name:
"
Windows 10 Enterprise
"
 
/
MountDir:C:\BigWork\Mount
 OR
 Dism 
/
Mount-Image
 
/
ImageFile:C:\BigWork\install.wim 
/
Index:
1
 
/
MountDir:C:\BigWork\Mount

My Dell XPS comes with a CAB driver pack, so I will use that. CAB is a compressed archive used for drivers and firmware.

Adding a package (CAB)

 Dism 
/
Image:C:\BigWork\Mount 
/
Add-Package
 
/
PackagePath:
"
C:\BigWork\Packages\9700-WIN10-A04-H0D74.CAB
"

If you face issues with CAB
For some reason adding my package returns error 0x80070002 for me, stating that it cannot find the file specified despite being correct path. To resolve, you can simply extract the archive and use the extracted folder in the “Adding Drivers” section below.

Extracting CAB folders

#
 -F option is files, the option below will extract the folder and all files recursively.
Expand 
"
C:\BigWork\Packages\9700-WIN10-A04-H0D74.CAB
"
 
-F
:
*
 
"
C:\BigWork\Drivers
"

Adding drivers (Individual, folder or extracted CAB)

#
 /Recurse allows driver path to be a folder full of files, like a decompressed CAB file. If you would like to add a singular driver you can, just remove recurse and specify the extension used (usually .inf). You can use /ForceUnsigned option if you want to install an unsigned driver, but it's not recommended, you can sign your own drivers too but that's outside the scope of this guide.
Dism 
/
Image:C:\BigWork\Mount 
/
Add-Driver
 
/
Driver:c:\BigWork\Drivers\
9700
 
/
Recurse

When adding multiple drivers, you should get verbose feedback on the install process, such as
Installing 139 of 139

Your drivers should now be installed and ready! 🎉

Verify

To verify installed 3rd party drivers.

Dism 
/
Image:C:\BigWork\Mount 
/
Get-Drivers

This will return a list of all of them, do note that the names will be generic and fail to match the original.

Save your changes

Unmount and commit your changes. Give it time to save your changes and dismount the image.

#
 You can use /Discard instead of /Commit if you made an error.
Dism 
/
Unmount
-
Image 
/
MountDir:C:\BigWork\Mount 
/
Commit

Creating a bootable USB

It’s now ready, now all that is left is to create a bootable USB with your new custom image! You need to have an USB drive formatted as FAT32 that is marked as active, for that follow Step 1 in this guide.

When that is done. Open/mount your original ISO and drag all files EXCEPT install.esd to the newly formatted USB. The reason that we do not want to transfer install.esd is because our newly generated file will replace it, and it’s large so it takes time to

If your install.wim exceeds 4GB.

It is likely that your install.wim file exceeds 4GB, which means that you will have to split it into multiple smaller files as FAT32 format does not support files over 4GB. This is easily fixed however. Microsoft docs offer an excellent solution here.

To split your .wim file to multiple smaller files, you can use this command

Dism 
/
Split-Image
 
/
ImageFile:C:\BigWork\install.wim 
/
SWMFile:E:\sources\install.swm 
/
FileSize:
3800

NOTE: This command is quite slow and lacks any visual indication of working, do be patient. (You can confirm that it works by checking USB disk usage in Task Manager)

When complete you should have two or more install.swm files.

Completion

Now all you have to do is drag your newly split install.swm files to your USB \sources\ folder. If you did not need to split the file you use install.wim.

Your USB is now ready, all that is left is to boot it and install Windows like usual! Your drivers should automatically be detected within Windows update on your newly installed OS.