4 This is wimlib version 0.6.2 (April 2012). wimlib can be used to read, write,
5 and mount files in the Windows Imaging Format (WIM files). These files are
6 normally created by using the `imagex.exe' utility on Windows, but this library
7 provides a free implementetion of imagex for UNIX-based systems.
9 The main use of this library is to create customized images of Windows PE, the
10 Windows Preinstallation Environment, without having to rely on Windows. Windows
11 PE is a lightweight version of Windows that can run entirely from memory and can
12 be used to install Windows from local media or a network drive or perform
13 maintenance. Windows PE is the operating systems runs when you boot from the
16 You can find Windows PE on the ISO filesystem on the installation DVD for both
17 Windows 7 and Windows 8. I don't have a DVD for Vista but it should be on there
18 too. The Windows PE image a WIM file, `sources/boot.wim', on the ISO
19 filesystem. Windows PE can also be found in the Windows Automated Installation
20 Kit (WAIK), which is free to download from Microsoft, inside the `WinPE.cab'
21 file, which you can extract if you install the `cabextract' program.
23 wimlib provides a public API for other programs to use, but also comes with two
24 programs: `imagex' and `mkwinpeimg'.
26 `imagex' is intended to be like the imagex.exe program from Windows. `imagex'
27 can be used to create, extract, and mount WIM files. Both read-only and
28 read-write mounts are supported. See the man page `doc/imagex.1' for more
31 `mkwinpeimg' is shell script that makes it easy to create a customized bootable
32 image of Windows PE that can be put on a CD or USB drive, or published on a
33 server for PXE booting. See the main page `doc/mkwinpeiso.1' for more details.
35 Wimlib can also be used to handle larger WIM files such as the `install.wim'
36 file that comes on the Windows DVD; however, this has not been well tested.
38 An earlier version of Wimlib is being used to deploy Windows 7 from the Ultimate
39 Deployment Appliance. For more information see
40 http://www.ultimatedeployment.org/.
42 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
46 Besides the various well-known options, the following options can be passed to
47 wimlib's `configure' script:
50 If libfuse or the FUSE kernel module is not available, wimlib can be
51 compiled with --without-fuse. This will remove the ability to mount and
52 unmount WIM files. wimlib_mount() and wimlib_unmount() will fail with
53 WIMLIB_ERR_UNSUPPORTED.
56 Build in functions for SHA1 rather than using external SHA1 functions
57 from libcrypto (part of OpenSSL). The default is to use libcrypto if it
58 is found on the system.
61 Use a very fast assembly language implementation of SHA1 from Intel.
62 Only use this if the build target supports the SSSE3 instructions.
64 --disable-custom-memory-allocator
65 If this option is given, MALLOC(), FREE(), CALLOC(), and STRDUP() will
66 directly call the appropriate functions in the C library.
67 wimlib_set_memory_allocator() will fail with WIMLIB_ERR_UNSUPPORTED.
69 --disable-verify-compression
70 Unless this option is given, every time wimlib compresses a data block
71 it will decompress it into a temporary buffer and abort() the program
72 with an error message if the decompressed data does not exactly match
73 the original data. This is to find bugs.
75 --disable-error-messages
76 Removes all error messages from the library. If left in, they still
77 have to explicitly turned on with wimlib_set_print_errors() in order to
78 see them. Also, error codes will still be returned regardless of
79 whether error messages are printed or not.
81 If --disable-error-messages is given, wimlib_set_print_errors() will
82 fail with WIMLIB_ERR_UNSUPPORTED if the action is to turn error messages
86 Remove all assertions. Without this option, wimlib will abort() the
87 program if an assertion fails. An assertion failure should only occur
88 if there is a bug in wimlib.
91 Include debugging messages. Only use this option if you have found a
95 Include more debugging messages. Only use this option if you have found
98 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
102 Wimlib requires libxml2 to build. This is a commonly used free library to read
103 and write XML files. You likely already have it installed as a dependency for
104 some other program. For more information see http://xmlsoft.org/.
106 Wimlib also requires libfuse to build (unless configured with --without-fuse;
107 see above). Most GNU/Linux distributions already include this, but make sure
108 you have the libfuse package installed (libfuse-dev if your distribution
109 distributes header files separately). FUSE also requires a kernel module. If
110 the kernel module is available it will automatically be loaded if you try to
111 mount a WIM file. Wimlib has only been tested with the Linux version of FUSE.
112 For more information see http://fuse.sourceforge.net/.
114 The `mkwinpeimg' shell script will look for several other programs depending on
115 what options are given to it. Depending on your GNU/Linux distribution, you may
116 already have these programs installed, or they may be in the software
117 repository. Making an ISO filesystem requires `mkisofs' from `cdrkit'
118 (http://www.cdrkit.org). Making a disk image requires `mtools'
119 (http://www.gnu.org/software/mtools) and `syslinux' (http://www.syslinux.org).
120 Retrieving files from the Windows Automated Installation Kit requires
121 `cabextract' (http://www.cabextract.org.uk).
123 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
127 I have been developing and testing wimlib on x86_64 (64-bit) GNU/Linux.
129 wimlib has been tested on x86 (32-bit) GNU/Linux occasionally.
131 I have not tried to compile wimlib with compilers other than gcc.
133 It should be possible to compile wimlib on other UNIX systems such as FreeBSD.
134 If this doesn't work, let me know. If libfuse is not available, try compiling
137 While the code has been tested on a little endian machine, it has been written
138 to work on big endian machines as well. (See endianness.h). However it has
139 never actually been tested on a big endian machine. Let me know if it doesn't
142 I am not planning to port wimlib to Windows since the programming interface on
143 Windows is very different and Microsoft's imagex.exe is already available.
145 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
149 The WIM file format is specified in a document that can be found in the
150 Microsoft Download Center. There is a similar document that specifies the LZX
151 compression format, and a document that specifies the XPRESS compression format.
152 However, some aspects of these formats are poorly documented. Some particularly
153 poorly documented parts of the formats have had comments added in various places
156 lzx-decomp.c, the code to decompress WIM file resources that are compressed
157 using LZX compression, is originally based on code from the cabextract project
158 (http://www.cabextract.org.uk).
160 lzx-comp.c, the code to compress WIM file resources using LZX compression, is
161 originally based on code written by Matthew Russotto (www.russotto.net/chm/).
163 lz.c, the code to find LZ77 matches, is based on code from zlib.
165 sha1.c and sha1.h, the code to compute SHA1 message digests of WIM resources or
166 of the WIM file itself in the case of integrity checks, are based on code from
169 A very limited number of other free programs can handle some parts of the WIM
170 file format. 7-zip is able to extract and create WIMs and files in many other
171 archive formats. However, WIMLIB is designed specifically to handle WIM files
172 and provides features previously only available in Microsoft's imagex.exe, such
173 as the ability to mount WIMs read-write.
175 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
179 See the manual pages for `imagex', the manual pages for the subcommands of
180 `imagex', and the manual page for `mkwinpeimg'.
182 As of version 0.5.0, Wimlib's public API is documented. Doxygen is required to
183 build the documentation. To build the documentation, run `configure', then
184 enter the directory `doc' and run `doxygen'. The HTML documentation will be
185 created in a directory named `html'.
187 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
191 Wimlib is released under the GNU LGPL version 2.1 or later. The files in the
192 `programs' directory are released under the GPL version 3.
194 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
198 Wimlib is experimental. Use Microsoft's `imagex.exe' if you want to make sure
199 your WIM files are made correctly. Please submit a bug report (to
200 ebiggers3@gmail.com) if you find a bug.
202 Some parts of the WIM file format are poorly documented or even completely
203 undocumented, so these parts had to be reverse engineered.