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Andy Kemp Consulting

Win11 Image Prep#

Create customised Windows 11 installation media with injected drivers and pre-removed apps — ready to deploy, no post-install cleanup required.

Watch the demo Try the live demo Download from GitHub

The live demo is a simulation of the Windows app with a made-up driver pack: imaging needs Windows and administrator rights, so it can't run in a browser. See What's new for the latest changes.

What It Does#

Win11 Image Prep solves the problem of deploying Windows 11 to hardware (particularly Surface devices) that requires drivers to be present during setup — before Windows is even installed. Rather than installing Windows and then layering drivers on top, this tool injects drivers directly into the ISO image so they are available from the first boot.

The result is a bootable USB drive with:

  • Drivers pre-injected into Windows, with the drivers setup and recovery need also in WinPE, Windows Setup and the Recovery Environment
  • Unwanted built-in apps (Xbox, Cortana, OneDrive, Teams, etc.) removed before deployment
  • Only the Windows editions you want included in the installer
  • A UEFI-compatible FAT32 bootable USB ready to use

Two Tools, One Repo#

The Win11ImagePrep repository contains two tools that do the same job — choose the one that fits your environment:

Tool Description Best For
Windows Application Native .NET 8 WPF desktop app (WinImagePrep_full.exe) Most users — no dependencies, just download and run
PowerShell Script Self-contained PowerShell WPF script (WinImagePrep_V3.ps1) Environments where running a script is preferred over an unsigned exe

Both tools provide a graphical interface and real-time operation logs. The Windows Application (v5) is the actively developed version and is recommended for all new use; the newer features on this page (multiple driver packs, Autopilot, the faster driver pipeline) are in the Windows Application only.

How It Works#

The Windows Application (v5.9) builds an image like this:

Select Windows 11 ISO + driver packs (MSI, ZIP or folder)
        ↓
Extract the ISO
        ↓
Keep only the selected editions (removed before anything is mounted)
        ↓
Extract each driver pack once; pick out the boot-critical drivers
        ↓
WinPE and Windows Setup (boot.wim): boot-critical drivers
        ↓
Each selected edition (install.wim): every driver, apps removed
        ↓
Recovery Environment (winre.wim): serviced once, reused in every edition
        ↓
Compact install.wim, split it if over 4 GB (FAT32), add autounattend.xml
        ↓
Bootable USB, ISO file or saved image

Boot-critical drivers are storage, network, USB, keyboard, touchpad and chipset drivers: what setup and recovery need to see the disk and take input. See Boot drivers.

Four Operation Modes#

Mode What It Does
Prepare Image with Drivers Full workflow — inject drivers, remove apps, then create USB
Create USB from ISO Create a standard bootable USB from an unmodified ISO (no driver injection)
Create USB from Saved Image Use a previously prepared image to create a new USB quickly
Repair / Cleanup Force-unmount stuck WIM images and clean temporary files

Key Features#

  • Bootable USB creation — UEFI-compatible FAT32, MBR partitioned, 14GB+ partition
  • Driver injection — one or more packs (MSI, ZIP or folder), each extracted once; every driver into Windows, boot-critical drivers into WinPE, Setup and WinRE
  • Drag and drop — drop the ISO and driver packs into the window; administrator rights are only requested when the build starts
  • Unattended and Autopilot — answer the setup questions for you, or hand over cleanly to Autopilot with your branding
  • App removal — remove provisioned Windows apps before deployment; dynamic discovery scans the ISO to find all ~47 packages present in your specific image
  • Edition control — select which Windows editions to include, suppress others
  • Saved images — save prepared images to the SavedImages folder for fast reuse
  • Driver validation — checks for .inf and .cat signature files before injection
  • Real-time logging — live operation log throughout, ending with a timing summary for each stage
  • Auto-cleanup — temporary files cleaned automatically; saved images preserved
  • Auto-update — check for and install updates directly from the Tools menu