Windows Images: Converting between .ESD and .WIM

There has been a few times now that I have found myself needing to convert a Windows image in Microsoft's Electronic Software Delivery format (.ESD) to a Windows Imaging file format (.WIM). I don't like the use of third-party tools and have trouble remembering what the exact commands are to do this in Windows. So I've written a quick reference below. You'll need to run the commands with administrative rights in a command prompt.

Get Windows Image Info

To find out what is in your Windows image use the following commands.

dism.exe /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:install.esd

Convert from .ESD to .WIM

To convert an Windows image from .ESD to .WIM format, use the following commands.

dism.exe /Export-Image /SourceImageFile:install.esd /SourceIndex:1 /DestinationImageFile:install.wim /Compress:Max /CheckIntegrity

Convert from .WIM to .ESD

Use a command similar to the above to convert a Windows image from .WIM to .ESD. Please note that the compress type parameter is set to Recovery.

dism.exe /Export-Image /SourceImageFile:install.wim /SourceIndex:1 /DestinationImageFile:install.esd /Compress:Recovery /CheckIntegrity