Why DISM is the Swiss Army knife of Windows maintenance

Windows’ built-in Deployment Image Servicing and Management command-line tool, a.k.a. DISM, has been around since Windows Vista, when it was first introduced as a method for creating and managing Windows images based on the Windows image (.wim) file format. It also works with the encrypted and compressed Electronic Software Download (.esd) file format introduced in Windows 8.1. DISM hasn’t changed much since it emerged in 2014, and (mostly) works the same for both Windows 10 and 11.

In the context of the DISM utility’s name, “servicing” is a broad term covering a wide range of functions, from capturing a disk partition and creating a disk image from its contents to mounting and modifying a disk image. My own recent use of DISM with Windows 10 and 11 has centered around day-to-day system upkeep and maintenance. I’ll discuss the following DISM tasks in this article:

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