Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit

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Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK), formerly Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK or WAIK), is a collection of tools and technologies produced by Microsoft designed to help deploy Microsoft Windows operating system images to target computers or to a virtual hard disk image in VHD format. It was first introduced with Windows Vista. WAIK is a required component of Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.

Video Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit

History

Windows AIK Version 1.0 was released with Windows Vista. New or redesigned tools and technologies included Windows System Image Manager (Windows SIM), Sysprep, ImageX, and Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE) v2.0.

Windows AIK Version 1.1 was released with Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008. A number of new tools were introduced, including PostReflect and VSP1Cln. WinPE 2.1 could be more customized. Supported operating systems include Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 SP1, Windows Server 2003 SP2 and Windows XP SP2.

Windows AIK Version 2.0 was released with Windows 7 beta. Significantly, a single new tool, DISM, replaced several earlier tools including PEImg and IntlCfg, which were deprecated. User State Migration Tool (USMT) was added to this version of WAIK. Supported operating systems include Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2, Windows Vista SP1, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Windows AIK version 3.0 is exactly the same as 2.0; the version number has only been updated to correspond with the release of Service Pack 1 for Windows 7. Microsoft has also released a WAIK supplement for Windows 7 SP1. WAIK readme references the WAIK supplement, which optionally adds WinPE v3.1 to a previously installed, compatible WAIK. Sysprep is not included with WAIK, but is instead included with the operating system.

AIK has been renamed The Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) for Windows 8 and includes Windows OEM Preinstallation Kit. ImageX was removed from this version, as DISM is offering all its features.

Maps Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit

Components

Application compatibility tools

This toolset consists of Compatibility Administrator and Standard User Analyzer.

Configuration Designer

DISM

Deployment Image Service and Management Tool (DISM) is a tool introduced in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 that can perform servicing tasks on a Windows, be the operating system running the system or an offline image within a folder or WIM file. Its features include mounting and unmounting images, querying installed device drivers in an offline image, and adding a device driver to an offline image.

Before Window Server 2012 and Windows 8, DISM had incorporated the majority of ImageX functions but not all; ImageX was still needed to capture the disk image for deployment. However, DISM deprecated ImageX in Windows 8. In addition, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 expose DISM services in PowerShell through 23 cmdlets for object-oriented scripting. This number has reached 30 in Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2.

Imaging and Configuration Designer

Preinstallation environment

WAIK includes Windows Preinstallation Environment, a lightweight version of Windows that can be booted via PXE, CD-ROM, USB flash drive or external hard disk drive and is used to deploy, troubleshoot or recover Windows environments. It replaces MS-DOS boot disks, Emergency Repair Disk, Recovery Console and Automated System Recovery boot disks. Traditionally used by large corporations and OEMs (to preinstall 1 Windows client operating systems to PCs during manufacturing), WinPE is now available free of charge via WAIK.

User state migration

WAIK for Windows 7 includes User State Migration Tool v4.0, a command-line interface tool for transferring Windows user settings from one installation to another as part of an operating system upgrade or wipe-and-reload recovery, for example, to clean out a rootkit. USMT v4.0 can transfer the settings from Microsoft Windows XP or later to Microsoft Windows Vista and later.

Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT)

Windows Assessment Toolkit

Windows Performance Toolkit

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Former components

ImageX

ImageX is the command-line tool used to create, edit and deploy Windows disk images in the Windows Imaging Format. Starting with Windows Vista, Windows Setup uses the WAIK API to install Windows.

The first distributed prototype of ImageX was build 6.0.4007.0 (main.030212-2037). It allowed Microsoft OEM partners to experiment with the imaging technology and was developed in parallel with Longhorn alpha prototypes. It was first introduced in Milestone 4 into the Longhorn project, and used in later builds of Longhorn. Build 6.0.5384.4 added significant advantages over previous versions, like read-only and read/write folder mounting capabilities, splitting to multiple image files (SWM), a WIM filter driver and the latest LZX compression algorithms. It has been used since pre-RC (release candidates) of Windows Vista.

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References

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External links

• Official website

Source of the article : Wikipedia