How To Make Vista Bootable DVD with WIM Downloaded Files

If you have purchased Windows Vista online and taken the delivery of the latest operating system via web download from Windows Marketplace or other online retailers, you would ends up with a few downloads with .wim and .exe file extensions. Rather than paying additional shipping and handling charges, you can burn or create a bootable ISO DVD image from downloaded Vista files with the following trick, where the .iso image can subsequently write to a DVD. The DVD created will be the typical 32-bit Windows Vista DVD that available in retail channel, and can be used to clean install.

How to make a bootable Windows Vista ISO DVD media

Put all 3 downloaded files (namely install.wim, boot.wim and an executable X13-49120.exe) in the same folder (for this tutorial, let’s assume the files are put on C:\ else you need to modify the path accordingly).
Run the X13-49120.exe executable. Windows Vista Setup Preparation will create a new folder “Vista” inside the folder and will populate the folder with all necessary Vista setup files which takes up about 2.52 GB disk space.
Exit from the Install Windows screen.
Download CDimage 2.52.
Extract CDimage from CDimage.zip to the C:\ root directory.
Open a command prompt shell, and run the following command:
```
cdimage.exe -lVISTA_EN_DVD -m -u2 -bC:\Vista\boot\etfsboot.com C:\Vista\ C:\Vistax86.iso
```
Bootable Windows Vista x86 DVD ISO image in UDF format will be created as vistax86.iso in C:\ or any folder you specified above.
Burn the newly create ISO with a CD/DVD burning software such as Nero or Alcohol 120%. Try to burn at low speed (i.e. 4X) and turn on verification to ensure that the DVD creation is fine.

Visit here for illustrative guide on using CDImage GUI version to make the bootable DVD ISO.

Create a Windows Vista ISO image and DVD with Oscdimg

Another possible way to create a bootable Vista ISO and DVD is by using Oscdimg CD-ROM and DVD-ROM Premastering Utility, available via WinPE (Windows Preinstallation Environment) via ~~Business Desktop Deployment 2007~~ (no longer available) or Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK).

Complete step 1 – 3 as above.
In the command prompt window, run the following command:
oscdimg -bC:\Vista\boot\etfsboot.com -h -u2 -m -lVISTA_EN_DVD C:\Vista\ C:\VistaDVD.iso
A VistaDVD.iso UDF DVD image will be created and can be used to boot the computer from DVD to install Vista.
Burn the ISO image file by using last step above.

You can also create Vista bootable DVD using vLite.

Note

For 64-bit Windows Vista, download etfsboot.com and extract the etfsboot.com and put it into “\Vista\boot” folder. Or users using WAIK (WinPE), the etfsboot.com can be found at %Programfiles%\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\amd64\boot\ folder. So simply replace -bC:\Vista\boot\etfsboot.com with -bC:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\amd64\boot\etfsboot.com when making 64-bit Vista DVD image.

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By LK| 2016-12-09T08:40:05+00:00 December 9th, 2016|Categories: Windows|Tags: Windows Vista|29 Comments

About the Author: LK

LK is a technology writer for Tech Journey with background of system and network administrator. He has be documenting his experiences in digital and technology world for over 15 years.Connect with LK through Tech Journey on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.

TheDeathOfYou
Garbage- error upon running the X13-49120.exe …tells me to go to some stupid ms site and ask for help hahaha WHAT!?. Thats a lot of wasted hours for bullcrap that dont work. I noticed that none of the crap here works…from vista to even xp wga fixes…nada.
Wow.
Wow this better fucking work or i'm going to rat this site out.
buzzbuzz90933
Works great, cheers
w3bg3ar
thx mAn.. ur my hero nyaknyaknyak!!!
Top
Thank you so much man, I was looking for a way to get the 64 bit version working. Thank you my friend!
Papo
When I tried using CDImage I received the following: 'cdimage' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. Any thoughts?
monkeypoop
Took a while to get the command correct, you dont explain the command very well, needs some guesswork! But got it to create an image (took ages), but its around 5gb in size, should it be?
Is there any way i can get this size down to a single layer disk?
Cheers
soZexy
monkeypoop, you did something wrong somewhere. should have only created iso image of about 2.5GB. I've done it myself and everything worked fine except my iso wasn't bootable for some reason. gonna go back and reread double check where i goofed. I'm thinking it didn't read the boot secotr image correctly.
Bhs
hi,
do we have to be in a Vista environment in order to create the above? or we can do it from Windows XP as well?
thanx
Mrcreativity
I get a 5gb image as well.
Any suggestions?
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Chris
says cannot find the etfsboot.com
?
- asd
  cdimage.exe -lVISTA_EN_DVD -m -u2 -bC:VistaVistabootetfsboot.com C:Vista C:Vistax86.iso <-Paste this in the Cmd and lol your comment is 6years old man sorry for late reply 😀
fb
Put your files into the root directory of a drive (c: or d: or e: …), then cdimage will create an iso of the correct size.
correct:
D:>cdimage.exe -lVISTA_EN_DVD -m -u2 -bD:Vistaootetfsboot.com D:Vista D:Vistax86.iso
CDIMAGE 2.52 CD-ROM and DVD-ROM Premastering Utility
Copyright (C) Microsoft, 1993-2000. All rights reserved.
For Microsoft internal use only.
Scanning source tree complete (614 files in 113 directories)
Computing directory information complete
Image file is 2711650304 bytes
Writing 614 files in 113 directories to D:Vistax86.iso
wrong:
D:_vista>cdimage.exe -lVISTA_EN_DVD -m -u2 -bD:_vistaVistaootetfsboot.com D:_vista D:Vistax86.iso
CDIMAGE 2.52 CD-ROM and DVD-ROM Premastering Utility
Copyright (C) Microsoft, 1993-2000. All rights reserved.
For Microsoft internal use only.
Scanning source tree complete (619 files in 114 directories)
Computing directory information complete
Image file is 5323587584 bytes
Writing 619 files in 114 directories to D:Vistax86.iso
bob
{V [V -( -l -LV |
bob
Sorry that was weird. What character is that between cdimage.exe and Vista?
Justin
Excellent. Thanks! Works like a charm.
Once problem, if you saved cdimage.exe to the root of your C: drive (or whatever you use as your main drive letter.) then you had to add that in front of the first command in the command prompt.
Other than that, great writeup, and my ISO is burning as I am typing this. Hopefully, it will auto boot and I won't have a problem as the above user did.
Thanks again!
lsawyer_1111
I get an error message just before the last line that is suppose to say :
Writing 614 files in 113 directories to D:Vistax86.iso
The error message is as follows:
ERROR: Unable to create file "C:Vistax86.iso" of 2711650304 bytes
Error5: Access is denied.
I am signed in as the system administrator and I even temporarily turned off my password to see if that was the problem but still no good.
I have a brand new HP DV6871 with over 249gb of free disk space.
What else can I try?
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DreadLetterDay
I had the 5gb iso problem, which was solved by moving the files to c: and starting again from scratch as mentioned above…
Muchas gracias
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x92
it is simple to make a vista bootable dvd.
1)download the three files from MS (boot.wim,install.wim,X13-49120.exe)
2)install winrar on your pc
3)open 'X13-49120.exe' with winrar
4)extract all the files(boot,efi,sources,support,upgrade 5 folders & autorun.inf,bootmgr,setp.exe)
5)copy install.wim & boot.wim and pate them into folder 'sources'
6)make a iso image or burn it into dvd as data disc
x92..
- Frank
  It is that simple. Thanks.
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Nate
Ok so I did this this morning (6/8/09) running windows vista home premium to make a bootable dvd for vista ultimate that I downloaded using Microsoft's Ultimate Steal promotion. I used the first option, which involves cdimage. I registered for the forum, downloaded the 47kb file and followed all the instructions. When I tried to run the command in command prompt, it would give me two errors:
ERROR: Unable to create file "C:Vistax86.iso" of 3969318912 bytes
and
Error5: Acces is denied
It turned out that the problem was that I couldn't let the program create a new file in my C drive. I solved the problem by having it create the .iso on my desktop. i.e. I changed
"cdimage.exe -lVISTA_EN_DVD -m -u2 -bC:Vistaootetfsboot.com C:Vista C:Vistax86.iso"
to "cdimage.exe -lVISTA_EN_DVD -m -u2 -bC:Vistaootetfsboot.com C:Vista C:userdesktopVistax86.iso" where user depends on your username.
After changing that it made the iso just fne!
Thanks for the guide!
TheCorrector
Correction: C:cdimage.exe -lVISTA_EN_DVD -m -u2 -bC:VistaVistabootetfsboot.com C:Vista C:Vistax86<(or64).iso Please recheck your instructions before you post.
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How To Make Vista Bootable DVD with WIM Downloaded Files

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