Before proceeding, have the Windows 10 ISO or USB drive handy. Windows has a built-in tool called DISM (Deployment Image Servicing and Management) that gives you the option to convert ESD to WIM with just a few commands. Follow the below steps to convert ESD to WIM. The good thing is, it is pretty easy to do. This means that if you want to include updates and drives and make any other changes before deploying the OS, you need to convert the install.esd file to install.wim file. However, the drawback is that the ESD files are encrypted and read-only.
The compression makes the installation file highly compact and easy to deploy. In recent years, Microsoft switched to ESD format thanks to its higher compression ratio compared to the old WIM format.
