Adding custom drivers to a WinPE WIM for Active@ Boot Disk

This article explains how to add WinPE hardware drivers (storage devices, video cards, motherboards, etc..) to the BOOT.WIM image of your Windows 10\11 image using the DISM utility.

1. Install Windows ADK

Download the latest Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) here: Windows Assessment Deployment Kit.

Make sure "Deployment Tools" ADK component is selected while installing ADK.

2. Download the WinPE driver pack

Active@ Boot Disk 24 comes with pre-installed driver packs for HP, Dell & Lenovo devices. You need to  go to your hardware device manufacturer's web site and download proper drivers for Windows 10/11 (64-bit). The latest driver pack, for example, for Dell you can download from this link: Dell - Deploy WinPE Driver Packs. In case if driver pack comes as a CAB file, extract CAB content to a folder, for example, to C:\Temp\Dell\

3. Mount the boot.wim file

Copy original Active@ Boot Disk's WIM file locally, for example, to C:\Temp\boot.wim 

Original WIM file location is X:\sources\boot.wim, assuming X: is a volume of Active@ Boot Disk on  inserted USB media).

Create an empty folder that will be used for WIM mounting, for example, C:\Temp\Mount\

From Windows Start menu, start the "Deployment and Imaging Tools Environment" with “Run as Administrator” rights.

Mount WIM using DISM mount-image command, like:

DISM /Mount-Image /ImageFile:"C:\Temp\boot.wim" /index:1 /MountDir:"C:\Temp\Mount"

4. Inject the WinPE drivers into boot.wim

Add the WinPE drivers to the mounted boot image (use the recourse switch to loop through all driver subfolders), like:

DISM /Image:C:\Temp\Mount /Add-Driver /Driver:C:\Temp\Dell /recurse

5. Unmount boot.wim

Unmount mounted boot.wim and commit the changes, like:

DISM /UnMount-Image /MountDir:"C:\Temp\Mount" /Commit

6. Start deploying your new WIM file with custom hardware drivers

Copy unmounted C:\Temp\boot.wim file containing new hardware drivers to your deployment media (back to to X:\sources\boot.wim, assuming X: is a volume of Active@ Boot Disk on inserted USB media and media is writable) and start deploying your Active@ Boot Disk that supports all the latest hardware drivers.