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windows-esd-to-iso

A tool to convert a Windows 11 electronic software distribution (ESD) to a bootable ISO image.

Since Microsoft does not distribute Windows ARM ISO images, a way to download ESDs plus this tool allows you to obtain a Windows ARM ISO image—e.g. for use in a virtual machine, such as UTM or the free VMware Fusion Player.

Requirements

All remaining requirements are already included in macOS. Patches are welcome for portability.

Usage

windows-esd-to-iso ESD_FILE

Converts the ESD in ESD_FILE to ISO format.

How it works

windows-esd-to-iso will use the wimlib tools to inspect, deconstruct, and assemble into an installation tree the images inside an ESD.

Specifically, it assumes:

  • Image 1 is the base Windows setup media, which serves as the base of the installation tree
  • Image 2 is Windows PE, exported to sources/boot.wim
  • Image 3 is Windows Setup, appended to sources/boot.wim, and set bootable
  • All remaining images are Windows editions, which will be exported into sources/install.esd

These steps are performed into a temporary directory. When finished, hdiutil is used to create the ISO image from this temporary tree.

If the script exits for any reason—successful or otherwise—the temporary directory is cleaned.

Downloading ESDs

There are a few ways you can get an ESD to convert with this tool.

  • My own download-windows-esd tool will get the Windows 11 ESD catalog from Microsoft, then download any ESD you wish that is referenced in that catalog and verify its SHA1 checksum.
  • Paul Rockwell's w11arm_esd2iso does both downloading and conversion of ARM images in a single shot.
  • Bogdan's ESD to ISO on macOS explains how to get and search through the catalog and download manually.

Converting to USB drives

You can convert an ISO produced with this tool to a USB drive with windows-iso-to-usb.

Licensing

While this tool itself is already licensed to you, Windows itself may require licensing and activation.

You must address this; this tool does not.