-wimlib 1.3.0 has added experimental support for Windows builds. These builds
-include both the "wimlib" library (built as a DLL) and the "imagex" executable.
+ INTRODUCTION
-The Windows builds use native Win32 calls when appropriate to handle alternate
-data streams, security descriptors, and reparse points.
+wimlib 1.3.0 has added experimental support for Windows builds. The support has
+been further improved in later versions. The Windows build consists of both the
+"wimlib" library (which can be built as a DLL) and the "wimlib-imagex"
+executable.
-Windows support currently has the following limitations:
+The Windows build of wimlib uses native Win32 calls when appropriate to handle
+alternate data streams, security descriptors, reparse points, encrypted files,
+compressed files, and sparse files.
-- It relies on the Cygwin UNIX-compatibility layer. You do not, however, need
- to have the Cygwin distribution installed to run it, as I have posted a ZIP
- file on SourceForge that contains the build of wimlib along with the DLLs
- needed for it to run. Please note that these DLLs are free and open source
- software; see http://www.cygwin.com/ for more details.
+Mounting WIM files is not supported on Windows. Also please note that wimlib's
+"wimlib-imagex" is NOT intended to be command-line compatible with Microsoft's
+"imagex", and wimlib is NOT intended to be API compatible with Microsoft's
+WIMGAPI. They are similar, though.
-- Mounting WIM files is not supported. On Windows there is no equivalent of
- FUSE, which I used to get mounting working on Linux and BSD, so I would have
- to program a "Filesystem Filter" driver with Microsoft's eccentric API.
+ NOTES ABOUT IMAGEX
-- wimlib's API is not compatible with Microsoft's WIMGAPI, although they offer
- some of the same functionality.
+"wimlib-imagex capture", "wimlib-imagex append", and "wimlib-imagex apply" will
+work on Windows and have the added advantage of saving and restoring
+NTFS-specific data, such as alternate data streams, security descriptors, and
+reparse points.
-So to be clear:
+"wimlib-imagex delete", "wimlib-imagex dir", "wimlib-imagex export",
+"wimlib-imagex info", "wimlib-imagex join", "wimlib-imagex optimize", and
+"wimlib-imagex split" are all portable and should work the same way on Windows
+as on UNIX.
-"imagex capture", "imagex append", and "imagex apply" will work on Windows and
-have the added advantage of saving and restoring alternate data streams,
-security descriptors, and reparse points.
-
-"imagex delete", "imagex dir", "imagex export", "imagex info", "imagex join",
-"imagex optimize", and "imagex split" are all portable and should work the same
-way on Windows as on UNIX.
-
-"imagex mount", "imagex mountrw", and "imagex unmount" will NOT work on Windows.
+"wimlib-imagex mount", "wimlib-imagex mountrw", and "wimlib-imagex unmount" will
+NOT work on Windows.
So on Windows, why would you want to use wimlib's ImageX instead of Microsoft's?
Well, here are a few reasons:
-- wimlib can be freely distributed; there is no need to download a 1.8 gigabyte
- "Windows Automated Installation Kit".
- wimlib offers fast multithreaded compression, so making WIM images can be much
faster.
+
+- Whenever possible I have included improved documentation and informational
+ output compared to Microsoft's software.
+
+- wimlib can correctly save and restore some combinations of data that
+ Microsoft's ImageX runs into bugs on --- for example, uncompressed files in
+ compressed directories, or files with alternate data streams and multiple
+ links.
+
- wimlib is free software, so you can modify and/or audit the source code.
+
+See the man page for 'wimlib-imagex' for more information.
+
+ BUILDING ON WINDOWS
+
+Actually doing the Windows build is a bit tricky, and I'd recommend you download
+precompiled binaries from http://sourceforge.net/projects/wimlib/files/ instead.
+I did it using MinGW-w64 on a Linux host, with the following configuration
+command:
+
+$ ./configure --host=i686-w64-mingw32
+
+after having installed the required libraries:
+
+* mingw-w64-gettext
+* mingw-w64-libiconv
+* mingw-w64-libxml2
+* mingw-w64-winpthreads
+* mingw-w64-zlib
+
+Note: zlib and gettext are only necessary when required by the build of libxml2.
+
+Building wimlib using Cygwin is not supported. I was trying this for a while,
+but I ran into some issues with mixing native Win32 functions and
+Cygwin-provided functions, so I made it possible to do a native Win32 build
+instead.
git://wimlib.net / wimlib / blobdiff