TEST BUILDS:
February build SurfacePro3WIMBoot
MEGA
(for next uploads, which one do you recommend: Box sync, Google Drive, MEGA, or OneDrive?)
Features:
1. Only 1.6 GB footprint on C: drive right after the first boot (53.5 GB free out of 55.1 GB C: drive on the 64 GB model. Free space increases accordingly on larger models)
2. August, September, October, November, and December update rollups slipstreamed.
- plenty of updates not included in rollups are included as well.
3. Surface Pro 3 specific updates included (KB2978002, KB2969817)
4. Bloat free with about 3 GB saving: (Microsoft devices are shipped bloat-free? Think again)
- Only 6 metro apps included (Camera, IE, OneDrive, PC Settings, Photos, Store). The rest can be downloaded from Store
- Trial Office removed, absolutely no trace this time around
- Speech data removed (available as separate package, link soon)
5. Pen Pairing OOBE appears and working
6. Languages included: Dutch, English, German, French. Since it is Windows 8 Pro, you can download any other language later.
7. WinRE from vanilla Windows, 200 MB saving (working so far, please report if something wrong happened)
8. Hibernation disabled out of the box (Connected Standby lasts forever, like a Surface RT)
9. 16 hours Connected Standby if hibernation is enabled (open an elevated cmd, then type powercfg -h on). The expected battery drain over the 16 hours period is less than 10%.
10. Pagefile takes less space: 256 MB, it can grow to up to 4 GB. Just reboot to get it back to 256 MB.
11. Various Windows tweaks
- Verbose messages, you get more information in restarts/boots/etc
- No startup programs delay, it has SSD anyway
- non-certified DLNA devices are supported
- Adaptive Brightness tweaked from XDA
- Custom resolution script added (open C: drive, its there. Just double click.)
12. Official drivers updated (January 2015 drivers)
13. Intel iGPU latest driver included (optional, you need to enable it manually using Device Manager. It uses the latest driver provided from Microsoft by default)
How to install:
BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP!!! This will format the entire disk. No data will be preserved! Its also advised to remove the microSD card during the process.
0. Get a keyboard and USB hub (Type Cover might also work, but I don't have one to test)
1. Download and extract the package with WinRAR (February build comes with 7-zip self-extractor)
2. Set up the ISO image on a CD or USB stick.
- If you use Rufus, set it on "MBR for UEFI computer" (only for the USB stick, the Surface will be set up as GPT)
3. Boot it on the Surface
4. Enter cd /d D:\scripts
5. Enter diskpart /s part44.txt (use part43 for December build)
6. Enter applywim D:\Images\install.wim D:\Images\winre.wim
7. You can repeat the step #6 just to be sure
8. Reboot, unplug the USB stick.
____________GUIDE____________
First of all, I would like to thank murphy78 from mydigitallife.info forum for creating the noob-friendly guide for creating WIMBoot image (friendlier than Microsoft's version, at least).
Here I tried doing it using Surface Pro 3's recovery image instead of clean Windows which is used on his/her guide. I recommend this especially for 64 GB model users, or if you want to deploy 64 GB Surface Pro 3s. 128 GB users can benefit too.
I don't really recommend this for 256 or 512 GB SP3s, since the additional free space is not worth the effort IMO (of course, youre free to do it, its YOUR SP3, after all).
(I copied most of the steps from murphy78's, unless changes are necessary)
(use elevated cmd when necessary)
Preparing the Windows PE files (only for applying the image, NOT installed on the SP3)
(Surface Pro 3 has Windows 8.1 Update 1 included. If youre doing this on the Surface Pro or Pro 2, you might need to update it.)
February build SurfacePro3WIMBoot
MEGA
(for next uploads, which one do you recommend: Box sync, Google Drive, MEGA, or OneDrive?)
Features:
1. Only 1.6 GB footprint on C: drive right after the first boot (53.5 GB free out of 55.1 GB C: drive on the 64 GB model. Free space increases accordingly on larger models)
2. August, September, October, November, and December update rollups slipstreamed.
- plenty of updates not included in rollups are included as well.
3. Surface Pro 3 specific updates included (KB2978002, KB2969817)
4. Bloat free with about 3 GB saving: (Microsoft devices are shipped bloat-free? Think again)
- Only 6 metro apps included (Camera, IE, OneDrive, PC Settings, Photos, Store). The rest can be downloaded from Store
- Trial Office removed, absolutely no trace this time around
- Speech data removed (available as separate package, link soon)
5. Pen Pairing OOBE appears and working
6. Languages included: Dutch, English, German, French. Since it is Windows 8 Pro, you can download any other language later.
7. WinRE from vanilla Windows, 200 MB saving (working so far, please report if something wrong happened)
8. Hibernation disabled out of the box (Connected Standby lasts forever, like a Surface RT)
9. 16 hours Connected Standby if hibernation is enabled (open an elevated cmd, then type powercfg -h on). The expected battery drain over the 16 hours period is less than 10%.
10. Pagefile takes less space: 256 MB, it can grow to up to 4 GB. Just reboot to get it back to 256 MB.
11. Various Windows tweaks
- Verbose messages, you get more information in restarts/boots/etc
- No startup programs delay, it has SSD anyway
- non-certified DLNA devices are supported
- Adaptive Brightness tweaked from XDA
- Custom resolution script added (open C: drive, its there. Just double click.)
12. Official drivers updated (January 2015 drivers)
13. Intel iGPU latest driver included (optional, you need to enable it manually using Device Manager. It uses the latest driver provided from Microsoft by default)
How to install:
BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP!!! This will format the entire disk. No data will be preserved! Its also advised to remove the microSD card during the process.
0. Get a keyboard and USB hub (Type Cover might also work, but I don't have one to test)
1. Download and extract the package with WinRAR (February build comes with 7-zip self-extractor)
2. Set up the ISO image on a CD or USB stick.
- If you use Rufus, set it on "MBR for UEFI computer" (only for the USB stick, the Surface will be set up as GPT)
3. Boot it on the Surface
4. Enter cd /d D:\scripts
5. Enter diskpart /s part44.txt (use part43 for December build)
6. Enter applywim D:\Images\install.wim D:\Images\winre.wim
7. You can repeat the step #6 just to be sure
8. Reboot, unplug the USB stick.
____________GUIDE____________
First of all, I would like to thank murphy78 from mydigitallife.info forum for creating the noob-friendly guide for creating WIMBoot image (friendlier than Microsoft's version, at least).
Here I tried doing it using Surface Pro 3's recovery image instead of clean Windows which is used on his/her guide. I recommend this especially for 64 GB model users, or if you want to deploy 64 GB Surface Pro 3s. 128 GB users can benefit too.
I don't really recommend this for 256 or 512 GB SP3s, since the additional free space is not worth the effort IMO (of course, youre free to do it, its YOUR SP3, after all).
(I copied most of the steps from murphy78's, unless changes are necessary)
(use elevated cmd when necessary)
Preparing the Windows PE files (only for applying the image, NOT installed on the SP3)
- Run the ADK commandline shortcut from start menu
- Run the following command: copype amd64 c:\WINPE_AMD64
- Mount the boot.wim from c:\WinPE_AMD64\media\sources\ and add the update msu packages
- Extract the 7z from the link in this post to the c:\winpe_amd64\media\Scripts folder (create folder if you need to)
(Surface Pro 3 has Windows 8.1 Update 1 included. If youre doing this on the Surface Pro or Pro 2, you might need to update it.)
- Download SurfacePro3_BMR_20_3.4.1.zip from the official site (Download a recovery image for Microsoft Surface)
- Copy install.swm, install2.swm, and install3.swm from SurfacePro3_BMR_20_3.4.1\sources\ to \Deployment Tools\amd64\DISM\ where imagex.exe resides (inside ADK)
- Open cmd in that directory and run the following command:
imagex /ref install*.swm /check /export install.swm * install.wim "SurfacePro3" - Mount the WIM image using the following command, change the directory if necessary
Dism /Mount-Image /ImageFile:"C:\SurfacePro3_BMR_20_3.4.1\sources\install.wim" /Index:1 /MountDir:C:\mount\ - Move the winre.wim from the windows\system32\recovery\ folder to c:\winpe_amd64\media\Images\ (might need to turn on see system files)
- Remove the system file attribute by running: attrib –s -h c:\winpe_amd64\media\images\winre.wim
- Optimize the image for WIMboot using the following command:
Dism /Optimize-Image /Image:C:\mount\ /WIMBoot - Capture the optimized image using the following command: DISM /Capture-Image /WIMBoot /ImageFile:" C:\WINPE_AMD64\media\Images\install.wim" /CaptureDir:C:\mount\ /Name:"SurfacePro3_WIMBoot"
(create folder if needed)
- Move the captured install.wim to c:\winpe_amd64\media\Images
- Edit the partition size in D:\scripts\CreatePartitions-WIMBoot.txt. It is the combination of install.wim and winre.wim + 50 MB (no idea why, it refuses to copy the Windows RE image if I didn't give 50 MB additional space)
The row to be edited is “shrink minimum=xxxx” - Create your wimboot iso by running the following oscdimg command in a directory with oscdimg (I use e:\waik5\amd64\)
E:\waik5\amd64\oscdimg.exe -u1 -be:\waik5\amd64\efisys.bin -pEF -bootdata:2#p0,e,be:\waik5\amd64\etfsboot.com#pEF,e,be:\waik5\amd64\efisys.bin c:\winpe_amd64\media\ c:\temp\WinPE_5.1_AMD64.iso
- Boot from the iso
(I do recommend to this on a VM first before messing with your SP3. Make sure your VM supports virtual SSD and EFI firmware) - Navigate to the disk's scripts folder in the winpe command prompt. For me it was cd /d D:\scripts\
- (If you click on the command prompt at any time and it seems to pause, just press enter and it will come back to life - learned hard way on vm)
- Run from the scripts folder: diskpart /s CreatePartitions-WIMBoot.txt
- After the diskpart script is done run: ApplyWimBootImage d:\Images\install.wim d:\Images\winre.wim
- And then just reboot and let the system finish setup. You can powerdown at the user creation screen if you are setting this up for a customer. (At least it says it's safe in the chm file)
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