Some basic use for dummies?

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DoTheEvo
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2017 8:07 pm

Some basic use for dummies?

Post by DoTheEvo »

Hi, wimlib looks amazing, but I need to wrap my head about the basic use
I am used to borgbackup on linux, and ever since I was exposed to it I am looking for opensource deduplicating backup for windows
finding out something that also uses VSS was godsend

anyway...
  • $target = D:\important
  • $backup = E:\backups
I want to make backup of the directory important on partition D

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wimlib-imagex.exe capture --snapshot D:\important E:\backups\important_backup.wim
now I can check some basic info about it that tells me index and stuff

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wimlib-imagex.exe info E:\backups\important_backup.wim
alright, that seems to be working, now how about accessing the files in it
7zip opening it up has no problem, but mounting with dism works too

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dism /mount-wim /wimfile:E:\backups\important_backup.wim /index:1 /mountdir:C:\recovery
But here comes the thing, I want to make backup every week and then in half a year, access backup from some specific week of my choice, how do I go about it? Or how about deleting older backups inside?
I am not sure if a wim file is like repo in borgbackup that gives list of snapshots and I can mount that specific snapshot with only files from that date or delete that snapshot.
I start to get the feeling that its more hands on, like a magic rar or zip archive. I can put in to it stuff and the magic box deduplicates files in it, but without some higher level mechanism to get stuff out based on when it was put in or something.

But this I guess where append or join comes to work? I could name a folder by the date of the backup and put it in to the wim file with append right next to all the other folders with date as their name....

Anyway, I already spend some time reading around, and got tired, so I just ask how to go about this...
maybe one succinct info page on the site with examples of real use would be god send.
synchronicity
Site Admin
Posts: 472
Joined: Sun Aug 02, 2015 10:31 pm

Re: Some basic use for dummies?

Post by synchronicity »

A WIM file can contain multiple images, each of which is a logically independent directory tree. The 'wimappend' command adds a new image. For an incremental backup you can just append an image that is named with a timestamp or datecode, then refer to it by name later. The --update-of option is also useful to speed up incremental backups. Also note that images can, of course, be extracted using wimlib; it's not necessary to use 7-Zip or DISM --- though by default, the created archives will be compatible with those programs.

You can find all the information in the documentation, mainly in the manual pages for wimlib-imagex. You can find the manual pages in PDF format in the Windows distribution, in 'man' format in the source code or Linux packages, or in HTML format on the website. You can also play around with throwaway directories before doing anything "for real".

Of course, I'll admit that I probably should write some more use-case-oriented walkthroughs. Note that historically, most users of wimlib-imagex haven't used it "just" for backup, so you'll find that the existing documentation and features cover many other use cases as well. It does work very well for backups, though --- at least for users who don't mind putting together some simple scripts.
DoTheEvo
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2017 8:07 pm

Re: Some basic use for dummies?

Post by DoTheEvo »

Thanks, will dig deeper and tinker with wimlib, making some powershell scripts, it seems extremely handy and powerful
DoTheEvo
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2017 8:07 pm

Re: Some basic use for dummies?

Post by DoTheEvo »

Another dummy windows question.

Restoring full OS drive from a wim archive in to bootable state. Now theres a question if its being done on the very same drive or a new drive. But lets go with a brand new empty drive.

First I tried similarly to this video

1. boot in to some different system
2. partition the drive as it was, system reserved partition followed by the OS partition
3. apply wim image on the OS partition

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wimlib-imagex apply d:\testing.wim 1 e:\
4. run bcdboot to fix bootloader

this would not work for me, and system would not boot, tried few other bootloader utilities but did not play much with them.

So I googled around, and someone talked about installing fresh copy of the same windows, letting it boot once, turn off, boot from someplace else with the drive mounted, then delete the content of the windows partition of that drive and use wimlib append on it.

This worked for me though I got some errors at the end of append, but it was just first try on some shitty old PC.

Is this an approved way of going about this? It seems relatively easy and ideal, but if theres some other reliable way, with few steps that work on mbr/gpt bios/uefi systems, I am all ears.

thanks
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