Force DISM to unmount/delete a mounted Windows WIM

Question

I use DISM to customize and update images that I deploy to our computers. I do this on an external drive because its really heavy on I/O. A while ago I appear to have left the image mounted in my F drive as F:\WIN81MOUNT. The files are there. Running dism /get-mountedwiminfo however shows that there are no mounted WIMs. As such, I have no idea how to delete WIN81MOUNT as I cannot remount, unmount, or just delete the folder (files have permissions of things like SYSTEM, as they are in the windows image).

How can I force this WIM to unmount, or remount? I have tried all the standard options such as unmount-wim, cleanup-image, remount-wim... none of them work, saying the request is not supported. The log indicates "This is not a WIM mount point.".

Solution

Following info is from "http://trueliarx.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/force-unmount-and-clean-up-of-wim-image.html"

Force Unmount and Clean up of a Wim Image using DISM

When you use RT7 (+ AIK) sometimes an error occurs stating that there's a mounted wim (ex. boot.wim). To solve the problem you should run, as administrator, the command:

“ dism /cleanup-wim”

If it doesn't work I've found another solution by editing the registry and deleting all the (necessary) entries within:

"HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WIMMount\mounted images\"

It should work as long as you are an administrator.

//end.

The regular procedure, which you've already used (?) is shown below:

1. Information can be found in the log file can be found at: C:\Windows\Logs\DISM\dism.log

2. In the case of 64bit servicing tools previously run on 64bit Windows;

In an elevated command prompt issue;

cd C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\amd64\Servicing

In the same elevated command prompt issue;

dism /?

Some helpful information may be displayed.

In the same elevated command prompt issue;

dism /Get-MountedWimInfo

Information about mounted images may be displayed.

If there are any Dirs found to be mounted, which need to be un-mounted, for each Dir issue;

dism /Unmount-Wim /Mountdir:C:\examplepath /commit

After this is complete the related wim files, found with "Get-MountedWimInfo", can be deleted using Windows Explorer.