Web Talk

So, what the heck is this Windows Automated Installation Kit for (WAIK) Windows 7 provided by Microsoft itself? Reading from the official Microsoft website: “The Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK) is a set of tools and documentation that support the configuration and deployment of Microsoft® Windows® operating systems.. By using Windows AIK, you can automate Windows installations, capture Windows images with ImageX, configure and modify images using Deployment Imaging Servicing and Management (DISM), create Windows PE images, and migrate user profiles and data with the User State Migration Tool (USMT)”.

In other words and simply put WAIK is nothing else than a set of tools (most of which are standalone applications) which help the user to automate Windows installation as well as its related software and other programs. Here are its most important tools:

• ImageX. It captures image files to be used in deployment. This tool replaces Norton’s Ghost in case you have been using it for your deployments.
• Package Manager. It is quite useful in case you want to add or remove packages from images.
• PEimg.exe. It creates Windows PE (Pre-Execution) images. Basically it is nothing else than a bare-bone operating system.
• Sysprep. This tool is used to remove specific data like for example the SID so that the images created from the machine do not propagate that data to all the other systems built from the same image.

If you want to know how to install it on your Windows 7, read this tutorial, directly from Microsoft. If you want to know more, click here. If you want to download it, click here.