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 `wimlib-imagex optimize' now supports the '--compress=TYPE' option,
18 which recompresses the WIM file using the specified compression TYPE.
19 The new library API function used for this is
20 wimlib_set_output_compression_type().
22 Added the wimlib_get_xml_data() function to allow library clients to
23 easily retrieve the raw XML data from a WIM file if needed.
25 Fixed a bug that could cause an error code to be incorrectly returned
26 when writing XML data containing a <WINDOWS> element.
28 Mounted WIM images will now correctly show the default file stream even
29 if appears in the alternate data stream entries of the corresponding WIM
33 Added a new experimental LZX compressor which can be enabled by passing
34 '--compress-slow' to `wimlib-imagex capture' or `wimlib-imagex
35 optimize'. (The latter is only applicable if the WIM is already
36 LZX-compressed and the '--recompress' option is also given.) The
37 experimental compressor is much slower but compresses the data slightly
38 more --- currently usually to within a fraction of a percent of the
39 results from WIMGAPI/ImageX.
41 A workaround has been added for compatibility with versions of WinPE
42 that interpret alternate data stream entries in the boot WIM
45 An alignment bug that caused a crash in the LZX decompressor on some
48 wimlib now attempts to clear the WIM_HDR_FLAG_WRITE_IN_PROGRESS flag in
49 the WIM header when restoring the previous state of a WIM it failed to
52 Added a workaround to avoid an access denied error on Windows when
53 replacing a WIM file that another process has opened.
56 wimlib can now open WinPE WIMs from WAIK v2.1, which had a quirk that
59 A bug in the interpretation of negative IMAGE indices in the
60 --update-of=[WIMFILE:]IMAGE option to `wimlib-imagex capture' and
61 `wimlib-imagex append' has been fixed.
63 A workaround has been added to successfully apply security descriptors
64 with empty DACLs when the NTFS-3g apply mode is being used with NTFS-3g
67 `wimlib-imagex capture' can now accept the '--delta-from' option
71 Added support for "pipable" WIMs. Pipable WIMs allow capturing images
72 to standard output and applying images from standard input, but they are
73 not compatible with Microsoft's software and are not created by default.
74 See the documentation for --pipable flag of `wimlib-imagex capture' for
77 To better support incremental backups, added support for declaring an
78 image as a modified form of another image. See the documentation for
79 the '--update-of' option of `wimlib-imagex append' and `wimlib-imagex
82 Added supported for "delta" WIMs. See the documentation for the
83 '--delta-from' option of `wimlib-imagex capture'.
85 The library support for managing split WIMs has been changed to support
86 other arrangements, such as delta WIMs, and be easier to use. This
87 change is visible in `wimlib-imagex', which also can now accept the
88 '--ref' option multiple times, and also now supports "delta" WIMs as
91 wimlib now preserves WIM integrity tables by default, even if
92 WIMLIB_WRITE_FLAG_CHECK_INTEGRITY is not specified. This changes the
93 behavior of `wimlib-imagex' whenever the WIM being operated on contains
94 an integrity table and the '--check' option is not specified.
96 `wimlib-imagex capture' now creates LZX-compressed WIMs by default
97 (when --compress is not specified). This provides the best compression
98 ratio by default, which is usually what is desired, at a cost of some
101 `wimlib-imagex' now supports being invoked as wimCOMMAND, where COMMAND
102 is the command as in `wimlib-imagex COMMAND'; for example, it can be
103 invoked as `wimapply' as an alternative to `wimlib-imagex apply'. The
104 appropriate hard links are created in UNIX installations of
105 `wimlib-imagex', while for the Windows distribution of `wimlib-imagex',
106 batch files that emulate this behavior are generated.
108 Security descriptors are now extracted correctly on Windows.
110 Fixed archiving DOS names in NTFS-3g capture mode.
112 The extraction code has been rewritten and it will now be easier to
113 support new features on all supported backends (currently Win32, UNIX,
114 and NTFS-3g). For example, hard-linked extraction mode (--hardlink) is
115 now supported on all backends, not just UNIX.
117 `mkwinpeimg' now supports grabbing files from the WAIK supplement rather
118 than the WAIK itself.
120 wimlib_global_init() now, by default, attempts to acquire additional
121 privileges on Windows, so library clients need not do this.
123 This update bumps the shared library version number up to 9, since it is
124 not binary compatibible with previous releases.
127 Fixed bug in `wimlib-imagex export' that made it impossible to export an
128 image from a WIM that is readonly at the filesystem level.
130 Return error code rather than segfaulting when trying to list files from
131 a non-first part of a split WIM.
133 Joining a WIM will now preserve the RP_FIX and READONLY flags.
136 On Windows, paths given to wimlib-imagex are now treated case
139 Improved behavior regarding invalid filenames; in particular, on
140 Windows, wimlib-imagex will, when extracting, now omit (with an option
141 to override this default) filenames differing only in case, or filenames
142 containing characters not valid on Windows.
144 On Windows, wimlib now supports capturing and extracting long paths
145 (longer than the so-called MAX_PATH).
147 On Windows, `wimlib-imagex update' now acquires proper privileges when
148 running as an Administrator.
150 `wimlib-imagex update' will now complain if no image is specified when
151 trying to update a multi-image WIM.
153 `wimlib-imagex update' now supports specifying a single update command
154 directly on the command line using the --command option.
156 wimlib-imagex will now choose different units for progress messages,
157 depending on the amount of data that needs to be processed.
159 `wimlib-imagex append' will now generate a unique WIM image name if no
160 name is specified and the defaulted name already exists in the WIM.
162 wimlib now allows you to create unnamed WIM images, which can then only
163 be referred to by index.
165 wimlib now allows you to explicitly declare you want write access to a
166 WIM by providing the WIMLIB_OPEN_FLAG_WRITE_ACCESS flag to
169 wimlib now respects the WIM_HDR_FLAG_READONLY flag when set in the WIM
172 Progress callbacks have been added to wimlib's wimlib_update_image()
175 Added wimlib_get_wim_info(), wimlib_set_wim_info(),
176 wimlib_iterate_dir_tree(), and wimlib_iterate_lookup_table() functions
179 NTFS-3g capture now only warns about two conditions previously treated
182 Fixed a couple issues with using wimlib-imagex on UDF filesystems on
185 wimlib now correctly detects and returns an error when reading a WIM
186 image with a cyclic directory structure. (Fun fact: such a WIM will
187 crash Microsoft's software.)
190 Added new "extract" and "update" subcommands to wimlib-imagex, along
191 with associated APIs in the library. These commands are intended mainly
192 for Windows use but can be used on UNIX as well.
194 Many documentation improvements.
196 Fixed a bug in the Windows build where relative symbolic links were not
197 captured in reparse-point fixup mode.
199 Fixed a bug in the Windows build where file handles were left open to
200 the WIM file, causing `wimlib_imagex optimize' to fail in some cases.
202 Fixed a bug in the Windows build of wimlib-imagex where globbing
203 split-WIM parts could cause the program to crash.
205 Fixed a bug where the creation time of WIM images would be shown instead
206 of the last modification time.
208 With the Windows build it is now possible to restore a WIM containing
209 symbolic links as a non-Administrator; however you will receive warnings
210 about not being able to extract the symbolic links.
213 Capturing a WIM image should now be significantly faster in most cases
214 due to improved use of the operating system's cache and avoiding reading
215 files twice whenever possible.
217 The Windows build should now work on Windows XP.
219 The Windows build now supports capturing and restoring hidden,
220 compressed, sparse, and encrypted files.
222 The Windows build now supports capturing and applying WIM images from
223 filesystems other than NTFS (with some reduced functionality).
225 The Windows build now extracts short names correctly.
227 Added support for "reparse-point" fixups (i.e. fixing up of symbolic
228 links). See docs for --rpfix and --norpfix flags of `wimlib-imagex
229 capture' and `wimlib-imagex apply'.
231 The performance of splitting and joining WIMs should be slightly
234 The LZX and XPRESS compression and decompression functions are now
235 exported from the library.
238 Improvements and bugfixes for the Windows build.
240 Added --strict-acls options.
242 Fixed the way that wimlib determines the order of images in the WIM.
245 Since wimlib can now be used on Windows, wimlib's implementation of
246 ImageX has been renamed to wimlib-imagex to avoid confusion with
247 Microsoft's implementation of ImageX, which would have the same file
248 name ("imagex.exe"). If you really don't like this you can pass the
249 --with-imagex-progname option to `configure' to choose a different name,
250 or even simply rename the binary yourself (but the former way will
251 configure the man pages to use the chosen name).
253 Various bugs fixed in the Windows build. Mainly to do with capturing
254 and restoring alternate data streams correctly in weird cases, and
255 requesting the correct privileges when opening files. Also added the
256 --noacls options to wimlib-imagex capture, append, and apply.
258 Windows build again: FindFirstStreamW() and FindNextStreamW() are now
259 dynamically loaded, so this may make the library compatible with Windows
260 XP (however, there may still be other problems).
263 Added experimental support for native Windows builds. Binaries can be
264 downloaded from the SourceForge page.
266 --source-list option added to `imagex capture' and `imagex append'.
268 Better support for different character encodings.
271 Storing UNIX file owners, groups, and modes in WIM images is now
272 possible using `imagex capture' with the --unix-data flag.
274 Minor bug fixes and documentation fixes.
277 NTFS capture: Fixed capturing duplicate reparse points.
279 NTFS capture: Capture first unnamed stream if there are more than one
280 (print warning instead of error).
282 Allow multiple test cases to execute concurrently (e.g. make -j2 check).
285 Added --arch switch to mkwinpeimg script to support getting AMD64 WinPE
288 Update to work with ntfs-3g version 2013.1.13.
291 Fixed truncating file to shorter but non-zero length on read-write
294 Various code cleanups and minor documentation fixes.
297 LZX and XPRESS decompression have received some additional optimizations
298 and should now be even faster. (Although, they were already pretty
299 fast--- much faster than typical I/O speeds.)
301 Fixed a bug introduced in v1.2.1 that would cause a directory tree
302 containing hard links to be captured incorrectly in some cases.
305 By default, unmounting a read-write mounted WIM with 'imagex unmount
306 --commit' will now change the WIM in-place without needing to write the
307 entire WIM again. Use 'imagex unmount --commit --rebuild' to get the
310 'imagex unmount' no longer has a hard-coded limit of 10 minutes to wait
311 for a response from the daemon servicing the mounted WIM. Instead,
312 every second 'imagex unmount' will check if the daemon is still alive,
313 and keep waiting if so, otherwise terminate with an error.
315 'imagex unmount --commit' on a read-write mounted WIM will now print
316 progress information regarding the writing of new or modified streams
317 the WIM, just like when capturing or appending a WIM.
319 A small change has been made to XPRESS compression and it should improve
320 the compression ratio slightly.
322 A change was made that may improve performance slightly when applying a
323 WIM image to a NTFS volume.
325 Microsoft has managed to introduce even more bugs into their software,
326 and now the WIMs for Windows 8 have incorrect (too low) reference counts
327 for some streams. This is unsafe because such streams can be removed
328 when they are in actuality still referenced in the WIM (perhaps by a
329 different image). wimlib will now work around this problem by fixing
330 the stream reference counts. This is only done when wimlib_delete_image() is
331 called ('imagex delete') or when wimlib_mount_image() is called with
332 WIMLIB_MOUNT_FLAG_READWRITE ('imagex mountrw'). Please note that this
333 requires reading the metadata for all images in the WIM, so this will
334 make these operations noticably slower on WIMs with multiple images.
336 Various other bugfixes.
339 Appending images to a WIM is now be done by default without re-building
340 the whole WIM. Use the --rebuild flag to get the old behavior (which
341 was to re-build the entire WIM when a new image is appended).
343 A new command `imagex optimize' is now available to manually re-build a
344 WIM that has wasted space due to repeated appends.
346 Progress information has been improved, and now arbitrary callback
347 functions can be used to show the progress of a WIM operation.
349 A possible bug with changing the bootable image of a WIM was fixed.
351 Some advisory locking is now done to prevent two processes from
352 modifying a WIM at the same time (but only in some cases). For example,
353 you cannot mount two images from a WIM read-write at the same time.
355 Some functions have been reorganized:
356 * wimlib_mount() renamed to wimlib_mount_image().
357 * wimlib_unmount() renamed to wimlib_unmount_image().
358 * wimlib_overwrite_xml_and_header() removed as
359 wimlib_overwrite() suffices now.
360 * wimlib_apply_image_to_ntfs_volume() removed as
361 wimlib_extract_image() suffices now.
362 * wimlib_add_image_from_ntfs_volume() removed as
363 * wimlib_add_image() suffices now.
365 Previously, the soname of libwim.so has been 0.0.0, despite many
366 interface changes. The soname is now updated to 1.0.0 and will now be
367 updated each release.
370 Resources will now be compressed using multiple threads by default.
371 (This applies to `imagex capture', `imagex append', and `imagex
374 Some performance improvements in mounted WIMs.
376 More progress information is shown when capturing a WIM.
379 Lots of minor fixes, code cleanups, and some documentation updates.
380 Nothing in particular is really noteworthy.
383 LZX and XPRESS compression improvements.
385 Fixed calculation of Directory Count, File Count, Total Bytes, and Hard
386 Link Bytes of the WIM.
389 Fixed bug when capturing NTFS file with multiple named data streams.
391 Internally, we are now using inode structures, even though these don't
392 appear literally in the WIM file. This simplifies some of the code
393 (mainly for WIM mounting) and likely fixed a few problems, although it
397 Fixed problem when exporting images from XPRESS to LZX compressed WIM or
401 Enough changes to call it version 1.0.0!
403 Capturing a WIM directly from a NTFS volume, and applying a WIM directly
404 to a NTFS volume, is now supported.
406 Hard links and symbolic links have much improved support. They are
407 supported for WIM capture, WIM application, and mounted WIMs (you can
408 even make them on read-write mounted WIMs).
410 Alternate data streams are now supported on mounted WIMs through an
411 xattr or a Windows-style stream interface. Also they are supported when
412 capturing a WIM from NTFS or applying a WIM to NTFS.
414 Split WIMs are better supported. You may now apply an image directly
415 from a split WIM, mount an image from a split WIM read-only, or export
416 an image from a split WIM.
418 Using a capture configuration file is now supported (but not fully yet).
420 SHA1 message digests are checked in more places, so we can make sure
421 applied and captured data is correct.
423 Man pages have been updated and consolidated.
426 Fixed segfault when unmounting read-only WIM.
429 Support for joining and splitting WIMs.
430 Also, security data is now preserved by default.
433 Can now build with older gcc and system headers, like on CentOS 5.
436 Fixed bug that made it impossible to overwrite files in read-write
440 Write byte-order mark before WIM XML data. (imagex.exe requires this to