Occasionally, you need to verify which versions of an operating system are contained within an ISO, or simply, what operating system is contained within it. Personally, I often find myself downloading Windows Server ISO files, which might be named ‘Datacenter’, but also contain the option to deploy ‘Standard’ and so on. This also extends to being able to identify if a Windows Server ISO file just contains Server core, or also contains the desktop experience.
In this post, I am going to show you how you can use the dism command in PowerShell to identify which the details of an operating system contained within an ISO file.
How to view OS details within an ISO file?
So you have downloaded your ISO file, firstly, you need to mount the disk to your local operating system. If your ISO file is located on a network drive or within a hypervisors storage environment, such as VMWare, you will need to download is locally first.
2. Identify the drive letter assigned to the mounted ISO file. In my case, the drive letter is E.
3. Open Windows PowerShell (or Terminal) as an administrator by searching for Windows PowerShell (or Terminal) in the start menu and selecting Run as administrator.
4. Run the following command in your Terminal session, ensuring your change the drive letter to match your mounted drive.
dism /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:E:\sources\install.wimYour output will look like the following which highlights the operating systems which are available within the ISO file.
5. To find more detailed information for each available operating system, use the /index parameter and specify the index number of the operating system you wish to find more information about. For example:
dism /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:E:\sources\install.wim /Index 4
