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@CodingWonders CodingWonders released this 21 Dec 08:15
f2f1bbd

dt_rel

DISMTools 0.6 is now available as a stable release, with new features and enhancements:

This release is a gift from me. Merry Christmas!

File hashes

File Name Hash (SHA256)
Installer dt_setup.exe 1F70DC25B72DA0C193FC2DC6FAF34B0E21EF27093DA433299DBDF147F9160969
Portable DISMTools.zip 3BEC62A87502D9675FAF7A0479A599269D147BD51B68F3C0E90C72928264CD6E

Changes made since last preview

Bugfixes

  • Fixed some visual issues in the testing environment creator

New features

  • The unattended answer file features have seen several improvements, mainly in the user accounts department:

    • UnattendGen has been updated to the latest version. This now requires .NET 9 to function, but you can always pick the self-contained package:

    • Duplicate user account detection has been added
    • User validation errors are more meaningful (see screenshot in overall changes)
    • Invalid characters are automatically trimmed from user names
    • Account checks have been added to block those that match the custom computer name

    • Windows 11 settings in the Basic System Configuration page are now disabled when you select x86 in the architecture list
    • You can now use your computer name as the computer name of the answer file more easily

    • You can now choose the Enterprise edition as part of the generic product key list

Note

Use this setting only if you want to use your computer as the one on which you want to use the unattended answer file. Computer names and descriptions help identify a computer on the network, so there will be a conflict if you use the answer file on a computer different than the one that created it

  • The custom system restart application, seen in the OS installer, has been added to the testing environment creator
  • The App Installer downloader has received cancel functionality

Overall changes

Bugfixes

Note

This will show the bugfixes of all preview versions. To view them, expand a section

Preview 1
  • Fixed an issue where some properties for image information reports were not obtained
Preview 2
  • The image application task and the image file information dialog are more reliable
  • Fixed an issue where all images would be remounted, but the first mounted image would never show in the automatic reload panel
  • Fixed an issue where the mounted image list in the mounted image manager would not be cleared if an external program unmounted all images
  • Fixed an issue where clicking the "Access directory" option of the "Mount directory" tree view item would always load the project's mount directory, even if the image was mounted elsewhere (thanks @Procstas for spotting)
  • Fixed a parser issue in the App Installer downloader
  • Fixed attribute filter issues for AppX package directories when they are dropped
Preview 3
  • Fixed an issue that happened when adding and removing capabilities where capability display names would be misclassified as capability identities
Preview 4
  • Fixed an issue where the program would continue running without having .NET Framework 4.8
  • Fixed an issue where the program would randomly freeze, even though it was still responding
Preview 5
  • Fixed an issue where the program would sometimes throw an exception at startup
Preview 6
  • The image name and description fields of the new design no longer use mnemonics, to prevent ampersands from showing as underscores
Preview 7
  • The image information report results dialog no longer mentions a text box
  • Italian translations have been slightly fixed (thanks @bovirus for spotting)
  • Fixed an issue where the following log path warning would be triggered during serviceability tests with the OS installer. This would happen with Selenium-based builds of Windows 11:

  • Fixed an exception that would sometimes happen when launching the AppX package addition dialog
Preview 8
  • Fixed an issue where operations would no longer start sometimes
  • Fixed a visual issue with the image file information list view of the ISO creation wizard
  • Fixed an issue where the program would throw an IO exception when getting information about AppX packages, such as Intel Graphics Experience or MSI Center, in some cases (#199, #200, thanks @yyg1208 for spotting)
  • Fixed a startup exception related to the mounted image detector (#201, thanks @Oldsch00lpunk for spotting)
  • The DynaLog logging system has seen some fixes in the log maintenance functions

New features

New tools

  • The image registry control panel has been introduced, allowing you to quickly load and unload the hives of the image or installation you are servicing:

Preinstallation Environment Helper/ISO Creation Tools

  • You can now press B on the partition selection screen to go back to the disk selection screen if you chose the wrong disk
  • The Operating System installer now shows a cleaner progress output for DiskPart and DISM:

  • Compatibility with PowerShell based on the new, open-source .NET (e.g., PowerShell 7) has been improved
  • Output for CopyPE and OSCDIMG is now shown more cleanly
  • To avoid bloating the program directory, the Windows PE image is now mounted to the %TEMP% ($env:TEMP) folder
  • A custom title is now used for both the PE generator and the OS installer
  • PowerShell is now called without loading any existing profiles in %USERPROFILE%\Documents\WindowsPowerShell, to speed up script launch
  • The testing environment portion of the Preinstallation Environment Helper is now loaded without loading profiles
  • The output of OSCDIMG has been improved for the Extensibility Suite
  • CODE: the indentation of the PE Helper is now consistent
  • The computer restart popup of the OS installer has been improved:

  • The time taken for the unattended answer file to be applied by the OS installer has been reduced
  • Image file information in the ISO creation wizard is now shown in a list view:

Image information dialogs

  • You can now filter features and capabilities based on their state by using the state: keyword, followed by the state:

Tip

State filters available to you:

  • State filters for features: enabled, disabled, enablepending, or disablepending
  • State filters for capabilities: installed, notpresent, or installpending

Unattended answer file features

  • For fully unattended installations (including setup), unattended answer files are now named autounattend
  • Panels in the disk configuration, user accounts, and wireless configuration pages are now properly resized when you resize the window, and the window can now be resized
  • Exit codes for the unattended answer file generator (UnattendGen) are now shown in Hex
  • Fixed some XML writer issues for the UnattendGen parser (thanks David Retzloff on the MDL forums for spotting)
  • The unattended answer file manager and the application task have received translations
  • You can now specify placeholders of the system components to add to your unattended answer file:

Note

  • The link at the bottom of the page will open the system component reference from Microsoft online documentation
  • You will have to fill in the details for the components and passes you configure
  • To continue creating your unattended answer file without configuring additional components, skip this page
  • After you have created your unattended answer file using the wizard, you can now open it in the Windows System Image Manager (SIM), or load it in the Editor mode to fill in placeholder passes:

Note

The program will detect the presence of the Windows SIM. If it is not detected in its standard location, the action will be disabled. The Windows SIM is installed alongside the deployment tools, from the Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK)

  • The mask character of password fields in the unattended answer file generation wizard has been updated:

  • User passwords are now encoded (obscured) with Base64 by default, for increased security

Note

Before you tell me that it's not a good way to keep passwords secure, I'll tell you that it's the only way of hiding this information, according to Microsoft. (It is not like Windows is the most secure OS either.)

Source

You can still store passwords in plain text, but it's not recommended for a mass deployment scenario

  • The default window size has been increased
  • You can now make the target system ask for a Microsoft account interactively:

  • More account checks have been added. Now, you need at least one user in the Administrators group before continuing with the creation of your answer file; and account names that the OS uses are now blocked:

Note

These checks aren't performed when you want to use a Microsoft account or want the system to ask for user information

  • After creating an answer file, if you want to create another one, you can now decide whether or not to reuse what you used for the answer file:

Image information reports

  • Image information reports are now saved in Markdown and, with the help of Markdig, previews are now shown in HTML form:

Tip

You can still view the contents of the Markdown file by toggling the "Display content in Web View" button

Note

Printed copies of these reports may not look right due to the width of the tables. Setting the page orientation to Landscape can help fix this issue

  • If a package contains preposterous dates, reports will now show such a mark

Components

  • 7-Zip has been updated to version 24.09
  • The Scintilla.NET component has been updated to version 5.6.4
  • The program installer is now built with a new version of Inno Setup (v6.3.3)
  • The managed DISM API library has been updated to version 3.2.0

Miscellaneous

  • The link to report program exceptions has changed to point to its new issue template
  • A requirement for Windows PE 4.0 (based on Windows 8) and newer images has been added for the image application task if you want to validate a Windows image for Trusted Desktop:

  • Added feature update detection for Selenium builds of Windows
  • The exception dialog has seen a major redesign to show more information and feature more information on how to report problems. Program version reporting is now included as well
  • If the program is configured to use the system color mode, the changes to these will now be handled much more smoothly and automatically:

  • Exception reporting now includes some basic information about the image you are servicing. This does not occur when managing active installations
  • You can now download Languages and Optional Features ISOs for Windows 10 and Windows 11 more easily:

  • CODE: the functionality for changing menu item colors has been refactored
  • When appending changes of an image to another index, you can now grab the name of the last index:

  • You will now see progress indication in the taskbar for certain tasks:

  • CODE: work on a unified logging infrastructure (DynaLog) has started. Its logging capabilities will be used in the entire codebase in the future
  • Improvements have been made to the installers (#192, thanks @bovirus). With these improvements, preview and stable releases are now shown separately:

  • Exception reporting now includes information about whether or not a copy is portable
  • The program now detects verified AME Playbooks (AtlasOS, Revision, and AME 10/11) and logs results with DynaLog. This is done to help isolate issues more

Removed features

  • The old project view (used by default in versions from 0.1 to 0.3.3) has been fully removed

Update details

Setting migration will be performed when you update to this version. These are the settings that will be affected:

Setting New status Reason
Personalization > Use the new project view design Removed The removal of the old project view design

What's Changed

Full Changelog: v0.5.1_stable...v0.6_stable