Huge news from Michael Kelly, lead PM in SMS, New Product Development:

"An important announcement about the WIM image format support in the upcoming SMS 2003 OSD Feature Pack Update:

Summary

Later in the spring of 2006, Microsoft is planning an update to the SMS 2003 OS Deployment Feature Pack.  This update supports deployment of pre-release Windows Vista and uses the WIM image format that is compatible with the WIM format used by Vista.

Background

When the SMS 2003 OS Deployment Feature Pack initially shipped in November 2004, it used an early version of the WIM format.  Since that time, the Windows Vista team has made enhancements and revisions to the WIM format, resulting in a similar but incompatible WIM format being released as part of Windows Vista.  Because of the changes, the WIM images captured by the SMS 2003 OS Deployment Feature Pack cannot be read or manipulated using the WIM tools provided with Vista.

When the update to the OS Deployment Feature Pack was planned, the plans envisioned continuing to use the old WIM format for technical and compatibility reasons.  However, as these plans were previewed with customers and Microsoft field personnel, the feedback was clear that this approach was unsatisfactory because customers wanted to take advantage of the WIM tools provided with Windows Vista.  Consequently, the SMS team has revised its plans and the update to the OS Deployment Feature Pack will offer the ability to use the final Vista WIM format.

Functionality

With the update to the SMS 2003 OS Deployment Feature Pack installed, newly created Image Capture CDs will capture images exclusively in the new Vista compatible WIM image format.  Such images can be incorporated into new and existing SMS image packages, just as with the existing OSD Feature Pack.  The new Vista compatible WIM image format is used both when capturing Windows Vista and when capturing older Windows operating systems such as Windows XP.

When an image package is deployed to a client computer, the deployment process will automatically at runtime determine whether the operating system image is in the original WIM format or the final Vista compatible WIM format.  In either case, the OSD Feature Pack will correctly deploy the image.  Compatibility is preserved because existing images in the original WIM format and newly captured images in the new Vista compatible WIM format can both be deployed.

Because the update to the OSD Feature Pack uses the Vista compatible WIM format, Vista WIM tools can be used to edit these images when the captured image contains a Vista operating system.  For example, the Windows System Image Manager can be used to add components, add drivers, change settings, etc. to images captured by the SMS 2003 OSD Feature Pack.   Also, images containing any version of Windows can be mounted as a file system, and files can be added to the image, removed from the image, or edited in the image.  All such edits to the WIM image are performed outside of SMS; then standard SMS procedures are used incorporate the updated image into an SMS operating system package and to replicate that updated package to SMS distribution points.

The update to the OSD Feature Pack continues to use Windows PE 2004 as the bare-metal environment for deploying WIM images, regardless of whether the original WIM format or the new Vista compatible WIM image format is used.

Limitations

With the exception of the updated WIM format, the SMS 2003 OS Deployment Feature Pack continues to use its existing processes for capturing and deploying an OS image.  The OSD Feature Pack image capture process inserts certain hooks into the image during the capture, and the deployment process assumes that those hooks are present.  Consequently, the OSD Feature Pack can only deploy images that were captured by the OSD Feature Pack.  Images captured outside of the SMS 2003 OSD Feature Pack cannot be deployed by the OSD Feature Pack even though the WIM format is the same.  For similar reasons, images captured by the OSD Feature Pack cannot be used by other deployment tools such as Windows Deployment Services (WDS).

The update to the SMS 2003 OS Deployment Feature Pack continues to support deploying only a single WIM image.  If Vista WIM tools are used to place additional WIM images into a WIM file originally created by the OSD Feature Pack, only the first WIM image can be deployed.  The OSD Feature Pack does not provide a mechanism to identify a specific WIM image in a multi-image WIM file.

The OSD Feature Pack does not provide a mechanism to convert images from the original WIM format to the new Vista compatible WIM format.  Such conversion is not necessary to continue to use existing operating system image packages because the OSD Feature Pack will continue to deploy images in the original WIM format."