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