Install Windows 10 IoT Core Insider Preview image using Windows 8.1

This article will briefly describe how to install the Windows 10 IoT Core Insider Preview image for the Raspberry Pi 2 on a SD card using Windows 8.1 (Windows Vista/7/8 should however work as well). This way you won't need to install a full Windows 10 on a physical machine as described in the official Microsoft "Get Started" article.

The procedure is basically the same as in the article, the only notable difference is that we will have to get a copy of the latest version of the "Deployment Image Servicing and Management" (DISM.exe) tool which is shipped together with Windows 10.

If you don't have a Windows 10 installation available, you can follow these instructions to get the tool:

• Download the "Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) RC for Windows 10:
  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=526740
• Run the setup wizard and ensure to select the "Windows Software Development Kit" when the setup prompts for the installation features.

You should now find the dism.exe with version number 10.0.*, by default at the following location:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Deployment Tools\amd64\DISM\dism.exe 

That's it, you can now follow the installation instructions in the Microsoft "Get Started" article. Just make sure that you use the updated dism.exe at step 10, so usually you want to issue the following command:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Deployment Tools\amd64\DISM\dism.exe" /Apply-Image /ImageFile:flash.ffu /ApplyDrive:\\.\PhysicalDriveN /SkipPlatformCheck 

If this was successful, you should now see the image being written to the SD card.