WIM vs ESD and boot.wim compression

[Blixxky]

Hello all,

Thanks for the work on this project.

I'm creating a debloat and hardening deployment method for Windows 11 and have been using wimlib as a final touch.

It's my understanding that .ESD files are just solid .WIMs? Are there any other differences?
And why doesn't wimlib rename it to ESD so it's clearly identifiable as a solid archive?

Further, I noticed when I tried the same solid high compression switches with boot.wim it became a non-bootable setup with critical errors. I didn't do any sort of testing to see if this was the issue, but it was the only other change I made to boot.wim

Does boot.wim need to be non-solid and editable for setup? What are the highest compression settings for this WIM?

Thanks in advance

[synchronicity]

> It's my understanding that .ESD files are just solid .WIMs?

That's basically it.

> And why doesn't wimlib rename it to ESD so it's clearly identifiable as a solid archive?

wimlib doesn't actually care about the file extension. It's always user-specified. You can use .esd if you want to.

> Does boot.wim need to be non-solid and editable for setup? What are the highest compression settings for this WIM?

As far as I know, Windows PE can only boot from a WIM in the original WIM format (not ESD).

Edit: for the highest compression that works for that case, I think it would be '--compress=lzx:100'.

[Blixxky]

> It's my understanding that .ESD files are just solid .WIMs?

That's basically it.

> And why doesn't wimlib rename it to ESD so it's clearly identifiable as a solid archive?

wimlib doesn't actually care about the file extension. It's always user-specified. You can use .esd if you want to.

> Does boot.wim need to be non-solid and editable for setup? What are the highest compression settings for this WIM?

As far as I know, Windows PE can only boot from a WIM in the original WIM format (not ESD).

Edit: for the highest compression that works for that case, I think it would be '--compress=lzx:100'.

@synchronicity
Thank you for the quick answer. You are amazing at what you do.
I've been fascinated by compression since multiple rar archives that had repairing features for damaged segments, like IRC pirating days.
You took something that many might consider trivial and improved it. At least take it from somebody that takes considerable care in what they present to the public, you have done an awesome job. You did your homework and executed amazing.

[Blixxky]

Don't mean to be annoying, but did this ever get fixed or do we have to double up on implied switches?

viewtopic.php?t=654

[synchronicity]

Yes, that was fixed, see the thread that you linked to.