1 Only the most important changes more recent than version 0.6 are noted here.
4 The new LZX compressor added in v1.5.2 has been improved and is now
5 enabled by default, except when `wimcapture' or `wimappend' is run
6 *without* the '--compress' option, in which case the faster LZX
7 compressor is used (the same as before). This behavior is reasonably
8 consistent with ImageX which actually uses "fast" (XPRESS) compression
9 by default. In those cases, use '--compress=maximum' to explicitly
10 capture a WIM image using the new (slower but better) LZX compressor.
12 The '--compress-slow' option still exists to `wimlib-imagex optimize',
13 but its new behavior is to tweak the new LZX compressor even more to
14 produce an even better compression ratio at the cost of more time spent
17 Added the wimlib_get_xml_data() function to allow library clients to
18 easily retrieve the raw XML data from a WIM file if needed.
20 Fixed a bug that could cause an error code to be incorrectly returned
21 when writing XML data containing a <WINDOWS> element.
23 Mounted WIM images will now correctly show the default file stream even
24 if appears in the alternate data stream entries of the corresponding WIM
28 Added a new experimental LZX compressor which can be enabled by passing
29 '--compress-slow' to `wimlib-imagex capture' or `wimlib-imagex
30 optimize'. (The latter is only applicable if the WIM is already
31 LZX-compressed and the '--recompress' option is also given.) The
32 experimental compressor is much slower but compresses the data slightly
33 more --- currently usually to within a fraction of a percent of the
34 results from WIMGAPI/ImageX.
36 A workaround has been added for compatibility with versions of WinPE
37 that interpret alternate data stream entries in the boot WIM
40 An alignment bug that caused a crash in the LZX decompressor on some
43 wimlib now attempts to clear the WIM_HDR_FLAG_WRITE_IN_PROGRESS flag in
44 the WIM header when restoring the previous state of a WIM it failed to
47 Added a workaround to avoid an access denied error on Windows when
48 replacing a WIM file that another process has opened.
51 wimlib can now open WinPE WIMs from WAIK v2.1, which had a quirk that
54 A bug in the interpretation of negative IMAGE indices in the
55 --update-of=[WIMFILE:]IMAGE option to `wimlib-imagex capture' and
56 `wimlib-imagex append' has been fixed.
58 A workaround has been added to successfully apply security descriptors
59 with empty DACLs when the NTFS-3g apply mode is being used with NTFS-3g
62 `wimlib-imagex capture' can now accept the '--delta-from' option
66 Added support for "pipable" WIMs. Pipable WIMs allow capturing images
67 to standard output and applying images from standard input, but they are
68 not compatible with Microsoft's software and are not created by default.
69 See the documentation for --pipable flag of `wimlib-imagex capture' for
72 To better support incremental backups, added support for declaring an
73 image as a modified form of another image. See the documentation for
74 the '--update-of' option of `wimlib-imagex append' and `wimlib-imagex
77 Added supported for "delta" WIMs. See the documentation for the
78 '--delta-from' option of `wimlib-imagex capture'.
80 The library support for managing split WIMs has been changed to support
81 other arrangements, such as delta WIMs, and be easier to use. This
82 change is visible in `wimlib-imagex', which also can now accept the
83 '--ref' option multiple times, and also now supports "delta" WIMs as
86 wimlib now preserves WIM integrity tables by default, even if
87 WIMLIB_WRITE_FLAG_CHECK_INTEGRITY is not specified. This changes the
88 behavior of `wimlib-imagex' whenever the WIM being operated on contains
89 an integrity table and the '--check' option is not specified.
91 `wimlib-imagex capture' now creates LZX-compressed WIMs by default
92 (when --compress is not specified). This provides the best compression
93 ratio by default, which is usually what is desired, at a cost of some
96 `wimlib-imagex' now supports being invoked as wimCOMMAND, where COMMAND
97 is the command as in `wimlib-imagex COMMAND'; for example, it can be
98 invoked as `wimapply' as an alternative to `wimlib-imagex apply'. The
99 appropriate hard links are created in UNIX installations of
100 `wimlib-imagex', while for the Windows distribution of `wimlib-imagex',
101 batch files that emulate this behavior are generated.
103 Security descriptors are now extracted correctly on Windows.
105 Fixed archiving DOS names in NTFS-3g capture mode.
107 The extraction code has been rewritten and it will now be easier to
108 support new features on all supported backends (currently Win32, UNIX,
109 and NTFS-3g). For example, hard-linked extraction mode (--hardlink) is
110 now supported on all backends, not just UNIX.
112 `mkwinpeimg' now supports grabbing files from the WAIK supplement rather
113 than the WAIK itself.
115 wimlib_global_init() now, by default, attempts to acquire additional
116 privileges on Windows, so library clients need not do this.
118 This update bumps the shared library version number up to 9, since it is
119 not binary compatibible with previous releases.
122 Fixed bug in `wimlib-imagex export' that made it impossible to export an
123 image from a WIM that is readonly at the filesystem level.
125 Return error code rather than segfaulting when trying to list files from
126 a non-first part of a split WIM.
128 Joining a WIM will now preserve the RP_FIX and READONLY flags.
131 On Windows, paths given to wimlib-imagex are now treated case
134 Improved behavior regarding invalid filenames; in particular, on
135 Windows, wimlib-imagex will, when extracting, now omit (with an option
136 to override this default) filenames differing only in case, or filenames
137 containing characters not valid on Windows.
139 On Windows, wimlib now supports capturing and extracting long paths
140 (longer than the so-called MAX_PATH).
142 On Windows, `wimlib-imagex update' now acquires proper privileges when
143 running as an Administrator.
145 `wimlib-imagex update' will now complain if no image is specified when
146 trying to update a multi-image WIM.
148 `wimlib-imagex update' now supports specifying a single update command
149 directly on the command line using the --command option.
151 wimlib-imagex will now choose different units for progress messages,
152 depending on the amount of data that needs to be processed.
154 `wimlib-imagex append' will now generate a unique WIM image name if no
155 name is specified and the defaulted name already exists in the WIM.
157 wimlib now allows you to create unnamed WIM images, which can then only
158 be referred to by index.
160 wimlib now allows you to explicitly declare you want write access to a
161 WIM by providing the WIMLIB_OPEN_FLAG_WRITE_ACCESS flag to
164 wimlib now respects the WIM_HDR_FLAG_READONLY flag when set in the WIM
167 Progress callbacks have been added to wimlib's wimlib_update_image()
170 Added wimlib_get_wim_info(), wimlib_set_wim_info(),
171 wimlib_iterate_dir_tree(), and wimlib_iterate_lookup_table() functions
174 NTFS-3g capture now only warns about two conditions previously treated
177 Fixed a couple issues with using wimlib-imagex on UDF filesystems on
180 wimlib now correctly detects and returns an error when reading a WIM
181 image with a cyclic directory structure. (Fun fact: such a WIM will
182 crash Microsoft's software.)
185 Added new "extract" and "update" subcommands to wimlib-imagex, along
186 with associated APIs in the library. These commands are intended mainly
187 for Windows use but can be used on UNIX as well.
189 Many documentation improvements.
191 Fixed a bug in the Windows build where relative symbolic links were not
192 captured in reparse-point fixup mode.
194 Fixed a bug in the Windows build where file handles were left open to
195 the WIM file, causing `wimlib_imagex optimize' to fail in some cases.
197 Fixed a bug in the Windows build of wimlib-imagex where globbing
198 split-WIM parts could cause the program to crash.
200 Fixed a bug where the creation time of WIM images would be shown instead
201 of the last modification time.
203 With the Windows build it is now possible to restore a WIM containing
204 symbolic links as a non-Administrator; however you will receive warnings
205 about not being able to extract the symbolic links.
208 Capturing a WIM image should now be significantly faster in most cases
209 due to improved use of the operating system's cache and avoiding reading
210 files twice whenever possible.
212 The Windows build should now work on Windows XP.
214 The Windows build now supports capturing and restoring hidden,
215 compressed, sparse, and encrypted files.
217 The Windows build now supports capturing and applying WIM images from
218 filesystems other than NTFS (with some reduced functionality).
220 The Windows build now extracts short names correctly.
222 Added support for "reparse-point" fixups (i.e. fixing up of symbolic
223 links). See docs for --rpfix and --norpfix flags of `wimlib-imagex
224 capture' and `wimlib-imagex apply'.
226 The performance of splitting and joining WIMs should be slightly
229 The LZX and XPRESS compression and decompression functions are now
230 exported from the library.
233 Improvements and bugfixes for the Windows build.
235 Added --strict-acls options.
237 Fixed the way that wimlib determines the order of images in the WIM.
240 Since wimlib can now be used on Windows, wimlib's implementation of
241 ImageX has been renamed to wimlib-imagex to avoid confusion with
242 Microsoft's implementation of ImageX, which would have the same file
243 name ("imagex.exe"). If you really don't like this you can pass the
244 --with-imagex-progname option to `configure' to choose a different name,
245 or even simply rename the binary yourself (but the former way will
246 configure the man pages to use the chosen name).
248 Various bugs fixed in the Windows build. Mainly to do with capturing
249 and restoring alternate data streams correctly in weird cases, and
250 requesting the correct privileges when opening files. Also added the
251 --noacls options to wimlib-imagex capture, append, and apply.
253 Windows build again: FindFirstStreamW() and FindNextStreamW() are now
254 dynamically loaded, so this may make the library compatible with Windows
255 XP (however, there may still be other problems).
258 Added experimental support for native Windows builds. Binaries can be
259 downloaded from the SourceForge page.
261 --source-list option added to `imagex capture' and `imagex append'.
263 Better support for different character encodings.
266 Storing UNIX file owners, groups, and modes in WIM images is now
267 possible using `imagex capture' with the --unix-data flag.
269 Minor bug fixes and documentation fixes.
272 NTFS capture: Fixed capturing duplicate reparse points.
274 NTFS capture: Capture first unnamed stream if there are more than one
275 (print warning instead of error).
277 Allow multiple test cases to execute concurrently (e.g. make -j2 check).
280 Added --arch switch to mkwinpeimg script to support getting AMD64 WinPE
283 Update to work with ntfs-3g version 2013.1.13.
286 Fixed truncating file to shorter but non-zero length on read-write
289 Various code cleanups and minor documentation fixes.
292 LZX and XPRESS decompression have received some additional optimizations
293 and should now be even faster. (Although, they were already pretty
294 fast--- much faster than typical I/O speeds.)
296 Fixed a bug introduced in v1.2.1 that would cause a directory tree
297 containing hard links to be captured incorrectly in some cases.
300 By default, unmounting a read-write mounted WIM with 'imagex unmount
301 --commit' will now change the WIM in-place without needing to write the
302 entire WIM again. Use 'imagex unmount --commit --rebuild' to get the
305 'imagex unmount' no longer has a hard-coded limit of 10 minutes to wait
306 for a response from the daemon servicing the mounted WIM. Instead,
307 every second 'imagex unmount' will check if the daemon is still alive,
308 and keep waiting if so, otherwise terminate with an error.
310 'imagex unmount --commit' on a read-write mounted WIM will now print
311 progress information regarding the writing of new or modified streams
312 the WIM, just like when capturing or appending a WIM.
314 A small change has been made to XPRESS compression and it should improve
315 the compression ratio slightly.
317 A change was made that may improve performance slightly when applying a
318 WIM image to a NTFS volume.
320 Microsoft has managed to introduce even more bugs into their software,
321 and now the WIMs for Windows 8 have incorrect (too low) reference counts
322 for some streams. This is unsafe because such streams can be removed
323 when they are in actuality still referenced in the WIM (perhaps by a
324 different image). wimlib will now work around this problem by fixing
325 the stream reference counts. This is only done when wimlib_delete_image() is
326 called ('imagex delete') or when wimlib_mount_image() is called with
327 WIMLIB_MOUNT_FLAG_READWRITE ('imagex mountrw'). Please note that this
328 requires reading the metadata for all images in the WIM, so this will
329 make these operations noticably slower on WIMs with multiple images.
331 Various other bugfixes.
334 Appending images to a WIM is now be done by default without re-building
335 the whole WIM. Use the --rebuild flag to get the old behavior (which
336 was to re-build the entire WIM when a new image is appended).
338 A new command `imagex optimize' is now available to manually re-build a
339 WIM that has wasted space due to repeated appends.
341 Progress information has been improved, and now arbitrary callback
342 functions can be used to show the progress of a WIM operation.
344 A possible bug with changing the bootable image of a WIM was fixed.
346 Some advisory locking is now done to prevent two processes from
347 modifying a WIM at the same time (but only in some cases). For example,
348 you cannot mount two images from a WIM read-write at the same time.
350 Some functions have been reorganized:
351 * wimlib_mount() renamed to wimlib_mount_image().
352 * wimlib_unmount() renamed to wimlib_unmount_image().
353 * wimlib_overwrite_xml_and_header() removed as
354 wimlib_overwrite() suffices now.
355 * wimlib_apply_image_to_ntfs_volume() removed as
356 wimlib_extract_image() suffices now.
357 * wimlib_add_image_from_ntfs_volume() removed as
358 * wimlib_add_image() suffices now.
360 Previously, the soname of libwim.so has been 0.0.0, despite many
361 interface changes. The soname is now updated to 1.0.0 and will now be
362 updated each release.
365 Resources will now be compressed using multiple threads by default.
366 (This applies to `imagex capture', `imagex append', and `imagex
369 Some performance improvements in mounted WIMs.
371 More progress information is shown when capturing a WIM.
374 Lots of minor fixes, code cleanups, and some documentation updates.
375 Nothing in particular is really noteworthy.
378 LZX and XPRESS compression improvements.
380 Fixed calculation of Directory Count, File Count, Total Bytes, and Hard
381 Link Bytes of the WIM.
384 Fixed bug when capturing NTFS file with multiple named data streams.
386 Internally, we are now using inode structures, even though these don't
387 appear literally in the WIM file. This simplifies some of the code
388 (mainly for WIM mounting) and likely fixed a few problems, although it
392 Fixed problem when exporting images from XPRESS to LZX compressed WIM or
396 Enough changes to call it version 1.0.0!
398 Capturing a WIM directly from a NTFS volume, and applying a WIM directly
399 to a NTFS volume, is now supported.
401 Hard links and symbolic links have much improved support. They are
402 supported for WIM capture, WIM application, and mounted WIMs (you can
403 even make them on read-write mounted WIMs).
405 Alternate data streams are now supported on mounted WIMs through an
406 xattr or a Windows-style stream interface. Also they are supported when
407 capturing a WIM from NTFS or applying a WIM to NTFS.
409 Split WIMs are better supported. You may now apply an image directly
410 from a split WIM, mount an image from a split WIM read-only, or export
411 an image from a split WIM.
413 Using a capture configuration file is now supported (but not fully yet).
415 SHA1 message digests are checked in more places, so we can make sure
416 applied and captured data is correct.
418 Man pages have been updated and consolidated.
421 Fixed segfault when unmounting read-only WIM.
424 Support for joining and splitting WIMs.
425 Also, security data is now preserved by default.
428 Can now build with older gcc and system headers, like on CentOS 5.
431 Fixed bug that made it impossible to overwrite files in read-write
435 Write byte-order mark before WIM XML data. (imagex.exe requires this to