WIMBOOT question
Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2016 10:55 pm
I've just checked install.wim from Windows 7 SP1 source - it uses LZX compression with a chunck size of 32768. Whilst it's not marked with the WIMBOOT flag, the compression and chunk size would appear to be WIMBOOT compatible (based on information in https://wimlib.net/man1/wimlib-imagex-apply.html) -
* Extract image 4 (Windows 7 Ultimate) from my source file install.wim - specifying the --WIMBOOT flag
* Copy wofadk.sys to the offline system extracted from install.wim
* Mount the SYSTEM registry hive extracted from install.wim and apply the wofadk.sys settings
* Run bcdboot on the extracted system
* Boot into the extracted system and complete setup
As WimBootCompress.ini is missing in the source install.wim (and I don't want to inject it in this instance as it will modify my original Windows 7 source file) and it's not possible to specify --config in the apply command, it's a non-starter.
If it was possible to add the option to specify a config file for apply, would this override any existing \Windows\System32\WimBootCompress.ini?
Hope this makes sense.
And this is not a feature request. Application is so limited I doubt it's worth the effort - it's more a proof of concept.
Regards,
Misty
P.s. Although WIMBOOT is not officially supported in Windows 7, it does work if wofadk.sys is added and JFX's WimBootCompress.ini is used (see Comparision of --compact compression formats)
The same documentation also states that -"...the Microsoft driver can externally back files from WIM files that use XPRESS chunks of size 8192, 16384, and 32768, or LZX chunks of size 32768, in addition to the default XPRESS chunks of size 4096 that are created when wimlib-imagex capture is run with the --wimboot option..."
What I'd like to do is the following -"...You actually can still do a --wimboot extraction even if the WIM image is not marked as "WIMBoot-compatible". This option causes the extracted files to be set as "externally backed" by the WIM file. Microsoft’s driver which implements this "external backing" functionality seemingly does not care whether the image(s) in the WIM are really marked as WIMBoot-compatible. Therefore, the "WIMBoot-compatible" tag (<WIMBOOT> in the XML data) seems to be a marker for intent only..."
* Extract image 4 (Windows 7 Ultimate) from my source file install.wim - specifying the --WIMBOOT flag
* Copy wofadk.sys to the offline system extracted from install.wim
* Mount the SYSTEM registry hive extracted from install.wim and apply the wofadk.sys settings
* Run bcdboot on the extracted system
* Boot into the extracted system and complete setup
As WimBootCompress.ini is missing in the source install.wim (and I don't want to inject it in this instance as it will modify my original Windows 7 source file) and it's not possible to specify --config in the apply command, it's a non-starter.
If it was possible to add the option to specify a config file for apply, would this override any existing \Windows\System32\WimBootCompress.ini?
Hope this makes sense.
And this is not a feature request. Application is so limited I doubt it's worth the effort - it's more a proof of concept.
Regards,
Misty
P.s. Although WIMBOOT is not officially supported in Windows 7, it does work if wofadk.sys is added and JFX's WimBootCompress.ini is used (see Comparision of --compact compression formats)