The other day I was setting up a new Windows Deployment Services image for a TFS/SharePoint Hyper-V environment.  The host machine was running Windows Server 2012 R2.  Per the normal process, I imported the Install.wim and Boot.wim images from the Windows Server 2012 media to my Install Images and Boot Images folders, respectively, in WDS.  This process operated as expected and were imported successfully.

I, then, needed to create a capture image in order to capture my Windows Server 2012 images for redeployment.  Therefore, I right-clicked on the Boot.wim image in Windows Deployment Services and clicked on “Create Capture Image…” to create my capture image.  The capture image was created successfully, or so I thought…

When I tried to boot to the new capture image on the network/client PC, I received the error message:

Windows failed to start.  A recent software change might be the cause.  To fix the problem:

  • Insert you windows disc and restart your computer
  • Click “repair your computer”

File \windows\system32\boot\winload.exe status 0xc000000f
The application or operating system couldn’t be loaded because a required file is missing or contains errors.

Apparently, this is a bug in the Windows 20012 boot image when it’s converted to a capture image by Windows Deployment Services.

Fixing this, however, is pretty simple:

  1. Log on to your WDS server
  2. Create a temporary directory (e.g. C:\MountTemp)
    NOTE: The directory should be on a drive that has enough available space to mount the image.
  3. Open a Command Prompt with Administrator privileges
  4. Mount the WIM file:

    dism /mount-wim /wimfile:”E:\Path To WIM File\Capture.wim” /mountdir:”C:\MountTemp” /index:1

    Where /wimfile points to the full path of the Windows 2012 capture image and /mountdir is the full path of the directory you created in step 2.

  5. Unmount the WIM file and commit the changes (even though you didn’t make any):

    dism /unmount-wim /mountdir:”C:\MountTemp” /commit

  6. Finally, refresh your WDS window so that it picks up the changes.

Now, you can reboot the network/client PC and the capture should boot/load correctly.

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