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