1 Only the most important changes more recent than version 0.6 are noted here.
4 Stored files with size exactly 4 GiB (4,294,967,296 bytes) are now
5 decompressed correctly.
7 Fixed a minor compatibility issue with the LZMS compressor and
8 decompressor. This is *not* the default compression type and was only
9 introduced in v1.6.0. In the unlikely event that you created a
10 LZMS-compressed WIM with v1.6.0 and a checksum error is reported when
11 applying it with v1.6.1, decompress it with v1.6.0 then compress it with
14 Fixed more permissions problems when extracting files on Windows.
16 Paths passed to wimlib_extract_paths() and wimlib_iterate_dir_tree() may
17 now use either forwards or backwards slashes, as documented.
19 Fixed a potential stack overflow when extracting solid archives
20 containing more than about 100000 files.
22 Memory usage for LZMS and LZX compression has been decreased.
24 For wimcapture, wimoptimize, and wimexport, '--solid' may now be used as
25 an alias for '--pack-streams'.
28 Support for extracting and updating the new version 3584 WIMs has been
29 added. These WIMs typically pack many streams ("files") together into a
30 single compressed resource, thereby saving space. This degrades the
31 performance of random access (such as that which occurs on a mounted
32 image), but optimizations have been implemented for extraction. These
33 new WIM files also typically use a new compression format (LZMS), which
34 is similar to LZMA and can offer a better compression ratio than LZX.
35 These new WIM files can be created using `wimcapture' with
36 the '--compress=lzms --pack-streams' options. Note: this new WIM format
37 is used by the Windows 8 web downloader, but important segments of the
38 raw '.esd' files are encrypted, so wimlib will not be able to extract
39 such files until they are first decrypted.
41 wimlib now supports extracting files and directories from a WIM image
42 based on a "listfile" that itself contains the list of paths to extract.
43 For `wimextract', the syntax is to specify @LISTFILE instead of a PATH,
44 and for the library itself, the new APIs are wimlib_extract_pathlist()
45 and wimlib_extract_paths(). Path globs containing wildcard characters
48 For searching WIM files, wimlib now has configurable case sensitivity.
49 The default on Windows is still case-insensitive and the default on
50 UNIX-like systems is still case-sensitive, but this can be overridden
51 on either platform through flags to wimlib_global_init(). For
52 `wimlib-imagex', the environmental variable WIMLIB_IMAGEX_IGNORE_CASE
53 can be set to 1 or 0 for case-insensitive or case-sensitive behavior,
56 Support for compression chunk sizes greater than the default of 32768
57 bytes has been added. A larger chunk size typically results in a better
58 compression ratio. However, the MS implementation is seemingly not
59 compatible with all chunk sizes, especially for LZX compression, so the
60 defaults remain unchanged, with the exception of the new LZMS-compressed
61 WIMs, which use a larger chunk size by default.
63 The compression/decompression API exported by wimlib has been changed.
64 Now one set of functions handles all supported compression formats.
66 `wimcapture' and `wimappend' will now display the progress of scanning
67 the directory tree to capture, in addition to the progress of writing
68 data to the WIM. The '--verbose' option no longer does anything. The
69 library API change for this is the addition of several members to
70 `struct wimlib_progress_info_scan' available to progress callbacks.
72 `mkwinpeimg' now correctly handles the '--start-script' option when the
73 start script is not in the working directory.
75 Sequential extraction, previously requested by using
76 WIMLIB_EXTRACT_FLAG_SEQUENTIAL, is now the default.
77 WIMLIB_EXTRACT_FLAG_FILE_ORDER can be used to get the old default
78 behavior (extract in file order).
81 The new LZX compressor added in v1.5.2 has been improved and is now
82 enabled by default, except when `wimcapture' or `wimappend' is run
83 *without* the '--compress' option, in which case the faster LZX
84 compressor is used (the same as before). This behavior is reasonably
85 consistent with ImageX which actually uses "fast" (XPRESS) compression
86 by default. In those cases, use '--compress=maximum' to explicitly
87 capture a WIM image using the new (slower but better) LZX compressor.
89 The '--compress-slow' option still exists to `wimlib-imagex optimize',
90 but its new behavior is to tweak the new LZX compressor even more to
91 produce an even better compression ratio at the cost of more time spent
94 `wimlib-imagex optimize' now supports the '--compress=TYPE' option,
95 which recompresses the WIM file using the specified compression TYPE.
96 The new library API function used for this is
97 wimlib_set_output_compression_type().
99 Added the wimlib_get_xml_data() function to allow library clients to
100 easily retrieve the raw XML data from a WIM file if needed.
102 Fixed a bug that could cause an error code to be incorrectly returned
103 when writing XML data containing a <WINDOWS> element.
105 Mounted WIM images will now correctly show the default file stream even
106 if appears in the alternate data stream entries of the corresponding WIM
110 Added a new experimental LZX compressor which can be enabled by passing
111 '--compress-slow' to `wimlib-imagex capture' or `wimlib-imagex
112 optimize'. (The latter is only applicable if the WIM is already
113 LZX-compressed and the '--recompress' option is also given.) The
114 experimental compressor is much slower but compresses the data slightly
115 more --- currently usually to within a fraction of a percent of the
116 results from WIMGAPI/ImageX.
118 A workaround has been added for compatibility with versions of WinPE
119 that interpret alternate data stream entries in the boot WIM
122 An alignment bug that caused a crash in the LZX decompressor on some
125 wimlib now attempts to clear the WIM_HDR_FLAG_WRITE_IN_PROGRESS flag in
126 the WIM header when restoring the previous state of a WIM it failed to
129 Added a workaround to avoid an access denied error on Windows when
130 replacing a WIM file that another process has opened.
133 wimlib can now open WinPE WIMs from WAIK v2.1, which had a quirk that
134 needed to be handled.
136 A bug in the interpretation of negative IMAGE indices in the
137 --update-of=[WIMFILE:]IMAGE option to `wimlib-imagex capture' and
138 `wimlib-imagex append' has been fixed.
140 A workaround has been added to successfully apply security descriptors
141 with empty DACLs when the NTFS-3g apply mode is being used with NTFS-3g
142 2013.1.13 or earlier.
144 `wimlib-imagex capture' can now accept the '--delta-from' option
148 Added support for "pipable" WIMs. Pipable WIMs allow capturing images
149 to standard output and applying images from standard input, but they are
150 not compatible with Microsoft's software and are not created by default.
151 See the documentation for --pipable flag of `wimlib-imagex capture' for
154 To better support incremental backups, added support for declaring an
155 image as a modified form of another image. See the documentation for
156 the '--update-of' option of `wimlib-imagex append' and `wimlib-imagex
159 Added supported for "delta" WIMs. See the documentation for the
160 '--delta-from' option of `wimlib-imagex capture'.
162 The library support for managing split WIMs has been changed to support
163 other arrangements, such as delta WIMs, and be easier to use. This
164 change is visible in `wimlib-imagex', which also can now accept the
165 '--ref' option multiple times, and also now supports "delta" WIMs as
168 wimlib now preserves WIM integrity tables by default, even if
169 WIMLIB_WRITE_FLAG_CHECK_INTEGRITY is not specified. This changes the
170 behavior of `wimlib-imagex' whenever the WIM being operated on contains
171 an integrity table and the '--check' option is not specified.
173 `wimlib-imagex capture' now creates LZX-compressed WIMs by default
174 (when --compress is not specified). This provides the best compression
175 ratio by default, which is usually what is desired, at a cost of some
178 `wimlib-imagex' now supports being invoked as wimCOMMAND, where COMMAND
179 is the command as in `wimlib-imagex COMMAND'; for example, it can be
180 invoked as `wimapply' as an alternative to `wimlib-imagex apply'. The
181 appropriate hard links are created in UNIX installations of
182 `wimlib-imagex', while for the Windows distribution of `wimlib-imagex',
183 batch files that emulate this behavior are generated.
185 Security descriptors are now extracted correctly on Windows.
187 Fixed archiving DOS names in NTFS-3g capture mode.
189 The extraction code has been rewritten and it will now be easier to
190 support new features on all supported backends (currently Win32, UNIX,
191 and NTFS-3g). For example, hard-linked extraction mode (--hardlink) is
192 now supported on all backends, not just UNIX.
194 `mkwinpeimg' now supports grabbing files from the WAIK supplement rather
195 than the WAIK itself.
197 wimlib_global_init() now, by default, attempts to acquire additional
198 privileges on Windows, so library clients need not do this.
200 This update bumps the shared library version number up to 9, since it is
201 not binary compatibible with previous releases.
204 Fixed bug in `wimlib-imagex export' that made it impossible to export an
205 image from a WIM that is readonly at the filesystem level.
207 Return error code rather than segfaulting when trying to list files from
208 a non-first part of a split WIM.
210 Joining a WIM will now preserve the RP_FIX and READONLY flags.
213 On Windows, paths given to wimlib-imagex are now treated case
216 Improved behavior regarding invalid filenames; in particular, on
217 Windows, wimlib-imagex will, when extracting, now omit (with an option
218 to override this default) filenames differing only in case, or filenames
219 containing characters not valid on Windows.
221 On Windows, wimlib now supports capturing and extracting long paths
222 (longer than the so-called MAX_PATH).
224 On Windows, `wimlib-imagex update' now acquires proper privileges when
225 running as an Administrator.
227 `wimlib-imagex update' will now complain if no image is specified when
228 trying to update a multi-image WIM.
230 `wimlib-imagex update' now supports specifying a single update command
231 directly on the command line using the --command option.
233 wimlib-imagex will now choose different units for progress messages,
234 depending on the amount of data that needs to be processed.
236 `wimlib-imagex append' will now generate a unique WIM image name if no
237 name is specified and the defaulted name already exists in the WIM.
239 wimlib now allows you to create unnamed WIM images, which can then only
240 be referred to by index.
242 wimlib now allows you to explicitly declare you want write access to a
243 WIM by providing the WIMLIB_OPEN_FLAG_WRITE_ACCESS flag to
246 wimlib now respects the WIM_HDR_FLAG_READONLY flag when set in the WIM
249 Progress callbacks have been added to wimlib's wimlib_update_image()
252 Added wimlib_get_wim_info(), wimlib_set_wim_info(),
253 wimlib_iterate_dir_tree(), and wimlib_iterate_lookup_table() functions
256 NTFS-3g capture now only warns about two conditions previously treated
259 Fixed a couple issues with using wimlib-imagex on UDF filesystems on
262 wimlib now correctly detects and returns an error when reading a WIM
263 image with a cyclic directory structure. (Fun fact: such a WIM will
264 crash Microsoft's software.)
267 Added new "extract" and "update" subcommands to wimlib-imagex, along
268 with associated APIs in the library. These commands are intended mainly
269 for Windows use but can be used on UNIX as well.
271 Many documentation improvements.
273 Fixed a bug in the Windows build where relative symbolic links were not
274 captured in reparse-point fixup mode.
276 Fixed a bug in the Windows build where file handles were left open to
277 the WIM file, causing `wimlib_imagex optimize' to fail in some cases.
279 Fixed a bug in the Windows build of wimlib-imagex where globbing
280 split-WIM parts could cause the program to crash.
282 Fixed a bug where the creation time of WIM images would be shown instead
283 of the last modification time.
285 With the Windows build it is now possible to restore a WIM containing
286 symbolic links as a non-Administrator; however you will receive warnings
287 about not being able to extract the symbolic links.
290 Capturing a WIM image should now be significantly faster in most cases
291 due to improved use of the operating system's cache and avoiding reading
292 files twice whenever possible.
294 The Windows build should now work on Windows XP.
296 The Windows build now supports capturing and restoring hidden,
297 compressed, sparse, and encrypted files.
299 The Windows build now supports capturing and applying WIM images from
300 filesystems other than NTFS (with some reduced functionality).
302 The Windows build now extracts short names correctly.
304 Added support for "reparse-point" fixups (i.e. fixing up of symbolic
305 links). See docs for --rpfix and --norpfix flags of `wimlib-imagex
306 capture' and `wimlib-imagex apply'.
308 The performance of splitting and joining WIMs should be slightly
311 The LZX and XPRESS compression and decompression functions are now
312 exported from the library.
315 Improvements and bugfixes for the Windows build.
317 Added --strict-acls options.
319 Fixed the way that wimlib determines the order of images in the WIM.
322 Since wimlib can now be used on Windows, wimlib's implementation of
323 ImageX has been renamed to wimlib-imagex to avoid confusion with
324 Microsoft's implementation of ImageX, which would have the same file
325 name ("imagex.exe"). If you really don't like this you can pass the
326 --with-imagex-progname option to `configure' to choose a different name,
327 or even simply rename the binary yourself (but the former way will
328 configure the man pages to use the chosen name).
330 Various bugs fixed in the Windows build. Mainly to do with capturing
331 and restoring alternate data streams correctly in weird cases, and
332 requesting the correct privileges when opening files. Also added the
333 --noacls options to wimlib-imagex capture, append, and apply.
335 Windows build again: FindFirstStreamW() and FindNextStreamW() are now
336 dynamically loaded, so this may make the library compatible with Windows
337 XP (however, there may still be other problems).
340 Added experimental support for native Windows builds. Binaries can be
341 downloaded from the SourceForge page.
343 --source-list option added to `imagex capture' and `imagex append'.
345 Better support for different character encodings.
348 Storing UNIX file owners, groups, and modes in WIM images is now
349 possible using `imagex capture' with the --unix-data flag.
351 Minor bug fixes and documentation fixes.
354 NTFS capture: Fixed capturing duplicate reparse points.
356 NTFS capture: Capture first unnamed stream if there are more than one
357 (print warning instead of error).
359 Allow multiple test cases to execute concurrently (e.g. make -j2 check).
362 Added --arch switch to mkwinpeimg script to support getting AMD64 WinPE
365 Update to work with ntfs-3g version 2013.1.13.
368 Fixed truncating file to shorter but non-zero length on read-write
371 Various code cleanups and minor documentation fixes.
374 LZX and XPRESS decompression have received some additional optimizations
375 and should now be even faster. (Although, they were already pretty
376 fast--- much faster than typical I/O speeds.)
378 Fixed a bug introduced in v1.2.1 that would cause a directory tree
379 containing hard links to be captured incorrectly in some cases.
382 By default, unmounting a read-write mounted WIM with 'imagex unmount
383 --commit' will now change the WIM in-place without needing to write the
384 entire WIM again. Use 'imagex unmount --commit --rebuild' to get the
387 'imagex unmount' no longer has a hard-coded limit of 10 minutes to wait
388 for a response from the daemon servicing the mounted WIM. Instead,
389 every second 'imagex unmount' will check if the daemon is still alive,
390 and keep waiting if so, otherwise terminate with an error.
392 'imagex unmount --commit' on a read-write mounted WIM will now print
393 progress information regarding the writing of new or modified streams
394 the WIM, just like when capturing or appending a WIM.
396 A small change has been made to XPRESS compression and it should improve
397 the compression ratio slightly.
399 A change was made that may improve performance slightly when applying a
400 WIM image to a NTFS volume.
402 Microsoft has managed to introduce even more bugs into their software,
403 and now the WIMs for Windows 8 have incorrect (too low) reference counts
404 for some streams. This is unsafe because such streams can be removed
405 when they are in actuality still referenced in the WIM (perhaps by a
406 different image). wimlib will now work around this problem by fixing
407 the stream reference counts. This is only done when wimlib_delete_image() is
408 called ('imagex delete') or when wimlib_mount_image() is called with
409 WIMLIB_MOUNT_FLAG_READWRITE ('imagex mountrw'). Please note that this
410 requires reading the metadata for all images in the WIM, so this will
411 make these operations noticably slower on WIMs with multiple images.
413 Various other bugfixes.
416 Appending images to a WIM is now be done by default without re-building
417 the whole WIM. Use the --rebuild flag to get the old behavior (which
418 was to re-build the entire WIM when a new image is appended).
420 A new command `imagex optimize' is now available to manually re-build a
421 WIM that has wasted space due to repeated appends.
423 Progress information has been improved, and now arbitrary callback
424 functions can be used to show the progress of a WIM operation.
426 A possible bug with changing the bootable image of a WIM was fixed.
428 Some advisory locking is now done to prevent two processes from
429 modifying a WIM at the same time (but only in some cases). For example,
430 you cannot mount two images from a WIM read-write at the same time.
432 Some functions have been reorganized:
433 * wimlib_mount() renamed to wimlib_mount_image().
434 * wimlib_unmount() renamed to wimlib_unmount_image().
435 * wimlib_overwrite_xml_and_header() removed as
436 wimlib_overwrite() suffices now.
437 * wimlib_apply_image_to_ntfs_volume() removed as
438 wimlib_extract_image() suffices now.
439 * wimlib_add_image_from_ntfs_volume() removed as
440 * wimlib_add_image() suffices now.
442 Previously, the soname of libwim.so has been 0.0.0, despite many
443 interface changes. The soname is now updated to 1.0.0 and will now be
444 updated each release.
447 Resources will now be compressed using multiple threads by default.
448 (This applies to `imagex capture', `imagex append', and `imagex
451 Some performance improvements in mounted WIMs.
453 More progress information is shown when capturing a WIM.
456 Lots of minor fixes, code cleanups, and some documentation updates.
457 Nothing in particular is really noteworthy.
460 LZX and XPRESS compression improvements.
462 Fixed calculation of Directory Count, File Count, Total Bytes, and Hard
463 Link Bytes of the WIM.
466 Fixed bug when capturing NTFS file with multiple named data streams.
468 Internally, we are now using inode structures, even though these don't
469 appear literally in the WIM file. This simplifies some of the code
470 (mainly for WIM mounting) and likely fixed a few problems, although it
474 Fixed problem when exporting images from XPRESS to LZX compressed WIM or
478 Enough changes to call it version 1.0.0!
480 Capturing a WIM directly from a NTFS volume, and applying a WIM directly
481 to a NTFS volume, is now supported.
483 Hard links and symbolic links have much improved support. They are
484 supported for WIM capture, WIM application, and mounted WIMs (you can
485 even make them on read-write mounted WIMs).
487 Alternate data streams are now supported on mounted WIMs through an
488 xattr or a Windows-style stream interface. Also they are supported when
489 capturing a WIM from NTFS or applying a WIM to NTFS.
491 Split WIMs are better supported. You may now apply an image directly
492 from a split WIM, mount an image from a split WIM read-only, or export
493 an image from a split WIM.
495 Using a capture configuration file is now supported (but not fully yet).
497 SHA1 message digests are checked in more places, so we can make sure
498 applied and captured data is correct.
500 Man pages have been updated and consolidated.
503 Fixed segfault when unmounting read-only WIM.
506 Support for joining and splitting WIMs.
507 Also, security data is now preserved by default.
510 Can now build with older gcc and system headers, like on CentOS 5.
513 Fixed bug that made it impossible to overwrite files in read-write
517 Write byte-order mark before WIM XML data. (imagex.exe requires this to