.TH IMAGEX "1" "November 2012" "imagex (wimlib) wimlib @VERSION@" "User Commands"
.SH NAME
imagex-delete \- Delete an image from a WIM archive

.SH SYNOPSIS
\fBimagex delete\fR \fIWIMFILE\fR \fIIMAGE\fR [--check]

.SH DESCRIPTION
.PP

\fBimagex delete\fR deletes the specified image from the Windows Imaging (WIM)
file \fIWIMFILE\fR.

\fIIMAGE\fR specifies the WIM image to deleted.  It may be a 1-based index of an
image in the WIM, the name of an image in the WIM, or the keyword "all" to
indicate that all images are to be deleted.  Use the \fBimagex info\fR (1)
command to show what images a WIM file contains.

.SH NOTES

By default, the WIM file is rebuilt with all unnecessary file data removed.
This is different from Microsoft's imagex.exe, which only will delete the
directory tree metadata and XML data for this operation.  (See the \fB--soft\fR
option for the other kind of delete).

Also, unlike imagex.exe, it is legal to delete all the images from a WIM and
have a WIM with 0 images, although such a file wouldn't be very useful.

\fBimagex delete\fR does not support split WIMs.

.SH OPTIONS
.TP 6
\fB--check\fR
When reading \fIWIMFILE\fR, verify its integrity if the integrity table is
present; additionally, when rewriting \fIWIMFILE\fR after the specified image was
deleted, write an integrity table.  If this option is not specified, no integrity
table is included in the new WIM file, even if there was one before.
.TP 6
\fB--soft\fR
Perform a "soft delete".  Specifying this flag overrides the default behavior of
rebuilding the entire WIM after deleting an image.  Instead, only minimal
changes to correctly remove the image from the WIM will be taken.  In
particular, all streams will be left alone, even if they are no longer
referenced.  This is probably not what you want, because almost no space will be
saved by deleting an image in this way.

You may use \fBimagex optimize\fR to delete unreferenced streams from a WIM that
has had images soft-deleted from it.

.SH EXAMPLES
Delete the first image from 'boot.wim':
.RS
.PP
image delete boot.wim 1
.RE
.PP

.SH SEE ALSO
.BR imagex (1)