3 This is wimlib version 1.0.0 (September 2012). wimlib can be used to read,
4 write, and mount files in the Windows Imaging Format (WIM files). These
5 files are normally created by using the `imagex.exe' utility on Windows,
6 but this library provides a free implementetion of imagex for UNIX-based
11 A major use for this library is to create customized images of Windows PE, the
12 Windows Preinstallation Environment, without having to rely on Windows. Windows
13 PE is a lightweight version of Windows that can run entirely from memory and can
14 be used to install Windows from local media or a network drive or perform
15 maintenance. Windows PE is the operating system that runs when you boot from
16 the Windows installation media.
18 You can find Windows PE on the installation DVD for Windows Vista, Windows 7, or
19 Windows 8, in the file `sources/boot.wim'. Windows PE can also be found in the
20 Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK), which is free to download from
21 Microsoft, inside the `WinPE.cab' file, which you can extract if you install
22 either the `cabextract' or `p7zip' programs.
24 In addition, Windows installations and recovery partitions frequently contain a
25 WIM containing an image of the Windows Recovery Environment, which is similar to
30 As of version 1.0.0, wimlib supports capturing and applying images directly to
31 NTFS volumes. This was made possible with the help of libntfs-3g from the
32 NTFS-3g project. This feature supports capturing and restoring NTFS-specific
33 data such as security descriptors, alternate data streams, and reparse point
36 The code for NTFS image capture and image application is complete enough that it
37 is possible to apply an image from the "install.wim" contained in recent Windows
38 installation media (Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8) directly to a NTFS volume,
39 and then boot Windows from it after preparing the Boot Configuration Data. In
40 addition, a Windows installation can be captured (or backed up) into a WIM file,
41 and then re-applied later.
45 wimlib provides a public API for other programs to use, but also comes with two
46 programs: `imagex' and `mkwinpeimg'.
48 `imagex' is intended to be like the imagex.exe program from Windows. `imagex'
49 can be used to create, extract, and mount WIM files. Both read-only and
50 read-write mounts are supported. See the man page `doc/imagex.1' for more
53 `mkwinpeimg' is shell script that makes it easy to create a customized bootable
54 image of Windows PE that can be put on a CD or USB drive, or published on a
55 server for PXE booting. See the main page `doc/mkwinpeiso.1' for more details.
60 This is a commonly used free library to read and write XML files. You
61 likely already have it installed as a dependency for some other program.
62 For more information see http://xmlsoft.org/.
65 Unless configured with --without-fuse, wimlib requires a non-ancient
66 version of libfuse to be installed. see above). Most GNU/Linux
67 distributions already include this, but make sure you have the libfuse
68 package installed (libfuse-dev if your distribution distributes header
69 files separately). FUSE also requires a kernel module.
70 If the kernel module is available it will automatically be loaded if you
71 try to mount a WIM file. For more information see
72 http://fuse.sourceforge.net/. FUSE is also available for FreeBSD.
75 Unless configured with --without-ntfs-3g, wimlib requires the library
76 and headers for libntfs-3g to be installed. Currently, the version
77 dated 2012-1-15 is required because I've cloned some of the code from
83 * cabextract (optional)
84 The `mkwinpeimg' shell script will look for several other programs
85 depending on what options are given to it. Depending on your GNU/Linux
86 distribution, you may already have these programs installed, or they may
87 be in the software repository. Making an ISO filesystem requires
88 `mkisofs' from `cdrkit' (http://www.cdrkit.org). Making a disk image
89 requires `mtools' (http://www.gnu.org/software/mtools) and `syslinux'
90 (http://www.syslinux.org). Retrieving files from the Windows Automated
91 Installation Kit requires `cabextract' (http://www.cabextract.org.uk).
96 Besides the various well-known options, the following options can be passed to
97 wimlib's `configure' script:
100 If libntfs-3g is not available or is not the correct version, we can
101 build without it. wimlib will then not be able to apply or capture
102 images directly to NTFS volumes.
105 If libfuse or the FUSE kernel module is not available, wimlib can be
106 compiled with --without-fuse. This will remove the ability to mount and
107 unmount WIM files. wimlib_mount() and wimlib_unmount() will fail with
108 WIMLIB_ERR_UNSUPPORTED.
111 Build in functions for SHA1 rather than using external SHA1 functions
112 from libcrypto (part of OpenSSL). The default is to use libcrypto if it
113 is found on the system.
115 --enable-xattr, --disable-xattr
116 Enable or disable support for the extended-attributes interface to NTFS
117 alternate data streams in mounted WIMs. To support these, we require
118 the setxattr() function and the attr/xattr.h header be available. The
119 default is to autodetect whether support is possible.
122 Use a very fast assembly language implementation of SHA1 from Intel.
123 Only use this if the build target supports the SSSE3 instructions.
125 --disable-custom-memory-allocator
126 If this option is given, MALLOC(), FREE(), CALLOC(), and STRDUP() will
127 directly call the appropriate functions in the C library.
128 wimlib_set_memory_allocator() will fail with WIMLIB_ERR_UNSUPPORTED.
130 --disable-verify-compression
131 Unless this option is given, every time wimlib compresses a data block
132 it will decompress it into a temporary buffer and abort() the program
133 with an error message if the decompressed data does not exactly match
134 the original data. This is to find bugs.
136 --disable-error-messages
137 Removes all error messages from the library. If left in, they still
138 have to explicitly turned on with wimlib_set_print_errors() in order to
139 see them. Also, error codes will still be returned regardless of
140 whether error messages are printed or not.
142 If --disable-error-messages is given, wimlib_set_print_errors() will
143 fail with WIMLIB_ERR_UNSUPPORTED if the action is to turn error messages
147 Remove all assertions. Without this option, wimlib will abort() the
148 program if an assertion fails. An assertion failure should only occur
149 if there is a bug in wimlib.
152 Include debugging messages. Only use this option if you have found a
156 Include more debugging messages. Only use this option if you have found
157 a bug in the library.
161 wimlib has mostly been developed and tested on x86_64 (64-bit) GNU/Linux.
163 It has been tested on x86 (32-bit) GNU/Linux occasionally.
165 I have tested a previous version of wimlib on FreeBSD and it worked, but this is
166 not well tested, especially with the more recent versions of this software.
168 wimlib should work on big endian machines but it has not been tested.
170 There are no plans to port wimlib to Windows since the programming interface on
171 Windows is very different and Microsoft's imagex.exe is already available.
175 The WIM file format is specified in a document that can be found in the
176 Microsoft Download Center. There is a similar document that specifies the LZX
177 compression format, and a document that specifies the XPRESS compression format.
178 However, many parts of these formats are poorly documented, and some parts have
179 no documentation whatsoever. Some particularly poorly documented parts of the
180 formats have had comments added in various places in the library. Please see
181 the code and/or ask me if you have any questions about the WIM file format as it
182 exists in reality and not as it exists in Microsoft's poorly written
185 The code in ntfs-apply.c and ntfs-capture.c uses the NTFS-3g library, which is a
186 library for reading and writing to NTFS filesystems (the filesystem used by
187 recent versions of Windows). Additionally, the code in ntfs-3g-security.c is
188 mostly copied from NTFS-3g, but I'm hoping to get rid of this file eventually.
189 See http://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-download/ for more information.
191 lzx-decomp.c, the code to decompress WIM file resources that are compressed
192 using LZX compression, is originally based on code from the cabextract project
193 (http://www.cabextract.org.uk).
195 lzx-comp.c, the code to compress WIM file resources using LZX compression, is
196 originally based on code written by Matthew Russotto (www.russotto.net/chm/).
198 lz.c, the code to find LZ77 matches (used for both XPRESS and LZX compression),
199 is based on code from zlib.
201 A very limited number of other free programs can handle some parts of the WIM
202 file format. 7-zip is able to extract and create WIMs (as well as files in many
203 other archive formats). However, wimlib is designed specifically to handle WIM
204 files and provides features previously only available in Microsoft's imagex.exe,
205 such as the ability to mount WIMs read-write as well as read-only, and the
206 ability to create LZX or XPRESS compressed WIMs.
208 An earlier version of wimlib is being used to deploy Windows 7 from the Ultimate
209 Deployment Appliance. For more information see
210 http://www.ultimatedeployment.org/.
212 You can see the documentation about Microsoft's version of the imagex program at
213 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749447(v=ws.10).aspx, so you can
218 See the manual pages for `imagex', the manual pages for the subcommands of
219 `imagex', and the manual page for `mkwinpeimg'.
221 As of version 0.5.0, wimlib's public API is documented. Doxygen is required to
222 build the documentation. To build the documentation, run `configure', then
223 enter the directory `doc' and run `doxygen'. The HTML documentation will be
224 created in a directory named `html'.
228 As of version 1.0.0, wimlib is released under the GNU GPL version 3.0 or later.
229 This includes the files in the `programs' directory.
233 wimlib is experimental. Use Microsoft's `imagex.exe' if you want to make sure
234 your WIM files are made correctly (but beware: Microsoft's version contains some
237 Please submit a bug report (to ebiggers3@gmail.com) if you find a bug in wimlib.
239 Some parts of the WIM file format are poorly documented or even completely
240 undocumented, so I've just had to do the best I can to read and write WIMs that
241 appear to be compatible with Microsoft's software.