DISMTools is an advanced front-end for the Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool, with support for projects and installations of any kind (whether it is your active installation or installations on any drive). DISMTools focuses on compatibility, with Windows image support starting from Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2, personalization, letting you customize it the way you want by configuring settings like the DISM executable to use, color modes, languages, and more; and performance, thanks to a combination of the DISM executable and a managed version of the DISM API (thanks to Jeff Kluge (jeffkl) for maintaining it) that provides rich functionality at speed.
DISMTools is an advanced front-end for the Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool, designed to simplify and enhance the management of Windows imaging (WIM) files and related operations. It supports a wide range of projects and installations, whether they are active or located on external drives, and provides compatibility with Windows images starting from Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2. The software emphasizes performance through the use of both the DISM executable and a managed version of the DISM API, ensuring efficient functionality while maintaining flexibility for existing workflows.
Key features include project-based management inspired by Visual Studio, allowing users to organize their work with ease and store essential components like mounted images and unattended answer files. DISMTools also supports offline installation management, enabling users to work with installations on any drive. Additionally, it offers rich information during tasks such as AppX package addition, automatic detection of sources from Group Policy, and the ability to generate detailed image reports in Markdown or HTML format.
Ideal for system administrators, OEMs, developers, and Windows enthusiasts, DISMTools streamlines operations like adding/removing packages, enabling/disabling features, managing drivers, and creating unattended answer files. Its advanced capabilities and compatibility with a wide range of Windows versions make it a valuable tool for those seeking precision and efficiency in their imaging workflows. The software can be installed via winget.
DISMTools is a front-end for DISM that lets you manage your Windows Imaging (WIM) files and a whole lot more.
About this project
This project was created simply because of the lack of free, open-source, and updated graphical interfaces for DISM. Before this tool was started, these popular UIs were available:
NTLite, which is the most popular offering. This software is free, but puts certain features (like downloading OS and program updates) behind a paywall, so it may not be for you if you are looking for a free, fully-featured program
MSMG Toolkit, which is one popular alternative. This is free and open-source (given that it is a script), but it may not be easily accessible for download, and may not be intuitive given its command-line user interface (TUI)
DISM GUI, the first popular, .NET powered GUI that lets you perform a couple of actions with your Windows images. While it is open-source (with its source code available on GitHub), it has not been updated since 2017
DISM++, another fully-featured, CBS-powered GUI. However, it has not been updated since 2023 and it is not open-source (even though there is a GitHub repository, it is only meant for the website and language translations)
There are also more GUIs for DISM, but they are way less known, so they are not mentioned here. Given this situation, this project was created to be a viable alternative to NTLite that was free, open-source, easily accessible, and constantly updated.
Key features
Working with projects
Inspired by Visual Studio, DISMTools is the first project-based GUI. Projects store the mounted image, unattended answer files you want to apply, and a scratch directory for temporary operations.
DISMTools projects are also tiny when you create them, and contain a structure that is easy to navigate.
The program also supports setting and removing file associations for projects with the click of a button (only on portable installations), so you can load your projects instantly by double-clicking them. You can also copy your installed deployment tools to your projects, allowing you to use those anywhere you take them.
Manage your active installation, or installations on any drive
With the online and offline installation management modes, you can easily manage any installation of a modern Windows version.
Compatibility and performance go hand in hand
Unlike other user interfaces for DISM that use either the DISM API or the DISM executable, DISMTools uses both, providing great performance to get the information you want from your images and installations quickly, and compatibility, allowing you to use any version of the DISM program, ranging from the Windows 7 version all the way up to the latest versions in Windows 10 and 11, so that your existing command-line workflows are not affected when you move to the graphical interface.
An advanced front-end
DISMTools isn't just a front-end for DISM, but an advanced one. As you perform tasks with your images and installations, you're presented with rich information and functionality. Here are some examples:
Rich information during AppX package addition. When adding an AppX package, you'll see rich information and, in most cases, the main Store logo asset. You can also add encrypted application packages to active installations, and configure stub package preferences, for full AppX package management:
Download content from App Installer packages automatically. Have an App Installer package? No problem. Add it, and DISMTools will download the main package and use it automatically:
Automatic detection of sources from Group Policy. If you want to enable a feature, repair the component store of a Windows image, or add a capability, with a source defined in the Group Policy; you can easily use it:
Easily create configuration lists. With the DISM Configuration List Editor you can quickly create your configuration list to exclude certain items during operations like capturing an image:
Quickly manage all your mounted images in one interface. The mounted image manager lets you perform basic image management tasks with your mounted images:
You can also get and save image file information using the manager:
Generate and print image information easily. With image information reports, you can save the information of one area or all areas of the Windows image you're servicing for future reference as a Markdown file. You can also see your Markdown report in HTML form thanks to Markdig:
Generate unattended answer files with ease. Using the unattended answer file creation wizard, powered by the answer file generator from Christoph Schneegans, you can create your files by simply following the pages:
Quickly test your Windows images. With the ISO creation wizard, you can test your Windows image quickly and easily. You can also use your unattended answer files to test them, or to speed up the installation process by removing tedious steps from the out-of-box experience:
> [!NOTE]
> The Windows ADK and its Windows PE plugin are required for this feature to work
View who signed an installed driver. When getting installed driver information, you can view the signer information of a driver if it is signed:
Supported actions
The following actions are supported by DISMTools:
> This program is in beta stages, so not every possible action is implemented. Check the "Unsupported actions" section for more details
Image management
WIM/SWM/ESD file application
Image capture
Image commits
Volume image removal (removal of unnecessary Windows editions)
Image mounting and unmounting
Image servicing session reloads
Image index switches
WIM -> ESD and viceversa conversion
SWM file merger
Component cleanup
Image splitting
Appending changes to Windows images
Exporting Windows images to new image files
OS packages and features
Package addition and removal
Feature enablement and disablement
AppX package servicing
Application addition and removal
Capabilities
Capability addition and removal
Drivers
Driver addition and removal
Provisioning packages
Add provisioning packages to an image
Languages and regional servicing
Setting keyboard layered drivers
Unattended answer files
Creating and managing unattended answer files
Applying unattended answer files
Other
Get complete information of an image
Using the project's or program's scratch directory
Get information of packages, features, AppX packages, capabilities, and drivers
Configure Windows PE settings
Unsupported actions
Regional settings
and more, it's in beta stages
These actions will be supported in future releases. They aren't implemented yet because it takes time to create working implementations that don't conflict with the rest of the program
System requirements
DISMTools is compatible with the following operating systems:
Client: Windows 8.1 and later (excluding Windows 10 versions 1507 and 1511)
Server: Windows Server 2012 and later (excluding Server Core variants)
> [!NOTE]
> DISMTools is not compatible with Windows 7/Server 2008 R2 (versions 0.2.1 onwards), Wine, or ReactOS
Downloading
You can download DISMTools from the Releases section (recommended), from Softpedia, or from WinGet:
Begin by either cloning the project or downloading a ZIP of the source code. Go to "Code", and select an option from there
Prepare the NuGet packages by running nugetpkgprep.bat in the location you cloned the repository to
Open the solution in Visual Studio 2012 or later
Finally, go to "Build > Build solution", or press CTRL-Shift-B
> [!NOTE]
> To build the Driver Installation Module project (DT-DIM) for ARM64 systems, you need the Visual Studio 2022 build tools. Install, at least, the Community edition and the MSVC v143- VS 2022 C++ ARM64/ARM64EC Build Tools component in the Visual Studio Installer.
>
> Simply searching for "MSVC" in the list of components can get you the necessary component.
> [!NOTE]
> To build the Driver Installation Module project for all architectures, run the build.bat script in the project root.
Additional startup flags
To speed up testing, you can perform these steps before running the program from within Visual Studio:
In the Solution Explorer, double-click My Project
Go to the Debug tab
Under the Startup options, type the following in the command line arguments text box: /nomig /noupd
/nomig skips setting migration
/noupd disables update check functionality
You should have this setting configured like this:
JetBrains users
If you use an IDE from JetBrains, you can also work on DISMTools. However, you can only modify the source code of forms, so there will not be any designer.
Contributions
If you want to contribute to this project, you can do so in many ways:
Code changes: changes that WILL make it to the next release. If you want to do these, please read the contribution guidelines
Documentation and/or artwork: if you like the visual side of things more, we recommend contributing to the help system! Check out the last section for instructions.
Testing the latest
We continue the development of the next version in the Preview branch. To go to it, select "dt_preview" from the branch list. Commits are done every day, and new builds are released every 2 weeks.
However, if you want to download the latest release AS SOON AS the project is built with new changes, you can download the nightly installer.
NOTE: this branch contains release candidate builds of DISMTools 0.6.2, and will be deleted once this version gets published as a stable release
