Slipstream Drivers into 2012R2 or Windows 8.1

This is an easy howto on how to slipstream Drivers into a Windows 2012R2 or Windows 8.1 DVD / ISO image.

The biggest issue you should note that you either need an 8 GB USB stick or a dual layer DVD. the Single layer DVD is to small to have the complete install on.

Also the following software is required:

Windows 7 USB DVD Tool. This link will go directly to the Microsoft website and is not hosted by me.
Windows ADK.

And it might be possible that you will need to edit the ISO image. For this I use myself Magic ISO, but this is a paid program. You might want to look into an alternative.

Magic ISO

For this Example I will have the following folders:

• Windows
• Drivers
• ISO

The folder Windows will have the ISO image files and will be the directory where the image will be build to.

In the folder Drivers you should put the drivers you want to include. Note that just installer files are not enough, it realy must be the drivers themselves (not the .exe files)

The ISO folder will be where you will have the (temporary) output of the ISO image.

Now lets create the Image.

First start Windows Power-shell in elevated privileges.
After that, execute the following code:

Get–WindowsImage –ImagePath .\Windows\sources\install.wim

It now will read out all the possible installation options that you can use. After you know which one you will use you should use the following code, in this example I will use option 2 on a 2012R2 install, which is for Windows 2012R2 Standard with GUI:

Mount–WindowsImage –Path .\ISO –ImagePath .\Windows\sources\install.wim –Index 2

After you have run this command the computer will be busy for a bit while it is reading and copying the information.
The next thing you need to do is adding the drivers. After you have put all the drivers you want extra into the DVD use the following command to add them to the DVD.

Add–WindowsDriver –Path .\ISO –Driver .\Drivers –Recurse

After it has listed which drivers are in that directory (make sure the diver that you really need is there) you can save this part of the image. Be prepared to wait for a LONG time.

Dismount–WindowsImage –Path .\Mount –Save

But wait! there is more!

We also need to make sure that the BOOT image has the drivers.

To do this we need to use the same paths as before, but with a small difference, we need to use boot.wim and not install.win. A short recap of all commands:

Get–WindowsImage –ImagePath .\Windows\sources\boot.wim

A small difference here, you will need the Windows PE which here is number 1, also make sure you have other added aswell

Mount–WindowsImage –Path .\ISO –ImagePath .\Windows\sources\boot.wim –Index 1

Add–WindowsDriver –Path .\ISO –Driver .\Drivers –Recurse

Dismount–WindowsImage –Path .\Mount –Save

Get–WindowsImage –ImagePath .\Windows\sources\boot.wim

Mount–WindowsImage –Path .\ISO –ImagePath .\Windows\sources\boot.wim –Index 2

Add–WindowsDriver –Path .\ISO –Driver .\Drivers –Recurse

Dismount–WindowsImage –Path .\Mount –Save

After all this is done we are actually going to make it into an ISO image.

For this, open the “Deployment and Imaging Tools Environment”. Which is part of the ADK Toolkit.

oscdimg -n -m -bc:\temp\Windows\boot\etfsboot.com C:\temp\Windows C:\temp\isodestination.iso

Optional: Once this is done it might be that you need to edit the ISO image. For these steps open Magic ISO. In here load the image file and go to “File-> Properties” deselect any CD file System options you could have and select UDF, select ISO Level 1. After that press OK. Then do “save as” and save the image file on a place where you can use it.

For putting the Image on USB use the following steps:

open the Windwos 7 USB DVD software. Select Browse and select the ISO image file. After that USB and Select the correct USB drive. When you selected it, it will be formatted and the ISO will be put on it.

An Alternative will be copying the files manually but that will require more time then to edit the ISO image and put it using the software there.

And finished! you have a nice bootable USB with Server 2012 R2 and the drivers that you want!