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.