Using DISM to disable Solitaire from a Windows 7 deployment image

Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) allows you to easily configure Windows 7 images for deployment. By default, a lot of games that your users leverage to waste a lot of time are enabled on a standard Windows 7 deployment. The good news is that using the DISM tool to disable these features in an image is very simple. Load Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7 (where DISM is installed by default) and copy the install.wim file from the sources directory on the Windows 7 installation media to the c:image directory. Also create a c:temp directory as you will use this to mount the image.

Determine which edition of Windows 7 you want to work with using the

Dism /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:c:imageinstall.wim

command. I want to work with Windows 7 Ultimate, which is identified with the index number 4. It is then necessary to mount the image to work with it. This can be accomplished with:

Dism /Mount-Wim /wimfile:c:imageinstall.wim /index:4 /mountdir:c:temp

Then you need to locate the package that you want to remove using the command:

Dism /image:c:temp /Get-Features | more

The name of the Solitaire feature is Solitaire. To get information about it, issue the command:

Dism /image:c:temp /Get-FeatureInfo /FeatureName:Solitaire

To disable the feature, use the following command:

dism /image:c:temp /Disable-Feature /FeatureName:Solitare

To verify that Solitaire is disabled run:

Dism /image:c:temp /Get-FeatureInfo /FeatureName:Solitaire

You will also probably want to disable the features named Hearts, SpiderSolitaire, More Games, FreeCell, MineSweeper, PurblePlace, Chess, Shanghai, Internet Games, Internet Checkers, Internet Backgammon, Internet Spades using the same technique. When you have disabled all the relevant features, issue the command:

Dism /unmount-wim /mountdir:c:temp /commit

Once you’ve done this, you can use a Windows Server 2008 feature like WDS to deploy the modified install.wim to deploy Windows 7 without all those pesky time wasting games.