+++ /dev/null
- INTRODUCTION
-
-This is wimlib version 1.4.0 (May 2013). wimlib is a C library for creating,
-modifying, extracting, and mounting files in the Windows Imaging Format (WIM
-files). These files are normally created by using the `imagex.exe' utility on
-Windows, but wimlib is distributed with a free implementation of ImageX called
-"wimlib-imagex" for both UNIX and Windows.
-
- INSTALLATION
-
-To install wimlib and wimlib-imagex on Windows you simply need to download and
-extract the ZIP file containing the latest binaries from the SourceForge page
-(http://sourceforge.net/projects/wimlib/), which you may have already done.
-
-To install wimlib and wimlib-imagex on UNIX (with Linux being the primary
-supported and tested platform), you must compile it from the source code. At
-some point I might start posting RPMs and Debian packages for convenience.
-
- WIM FILES
-
-A Windows Imaging (WIM) file is an archive designed primarily for archiving
-Windows filesystems. However, it can be used on other platforms as well, with
-some limitations. Like some other archive formats such as ZIP, files in WIM
-archives may be compressed. WIM files support two compression formats: LZX and
-XPRESS. Both are supported by wimlib.
-
-A WIM file consists of one or more "images". Each image is an independent
-top-level directory structure and is logically separate from all other images in
-the WIM. Each image has a name as well as a 1-based index in the WIM file. To
-save space, WIM archives automatically combine all duplicate files across all
-images.
-
-A WIM file may be either stand-alone or split into multiple parts. Split WIMs
-are read-only and cannot be modified.
-
- IMAGEX IMPLEMENTATION
-
-wimlib itself is a C library, and it provides a documented public API (See:
-http://wimlib.sourceforge.net) for other programs to use. However, it is also
-distributed with a command-line program called "wimlib-imagex" that uses this
-library to implement an imaging tool similar to Microsoft's ImageX.
-wimlib-imagex supports almost all the capabilities of Microsoft's ImageX as well
-as additional capabilities. wimlib-imagex works on both UNIX and Windows,
-although some features differ between the platforms.
-
-Run `wimlib-imagex' with no arguments to see an overview of the available
-commands and their syntax. For additional documentation:
-
- * If you have installed wimlib-imagex on UNIX, you will find further
- documentation in the man pages; run `man wimlib-imagex' to get started.
-
- * If you have downloaded the Windows binary distribution, you will find the
- documentation for wimlib-imagex in PDF format in the "doc" directory,
- ready for viewing with any PDF viewer. Please note that although the PDF
- files are converted from UNIX-style "man pages", they do document
- Windows-specific behavior when appropriate.
-
- COMPRESSION RATIO
-
-wimlib (and wimlib-imagex) can create XPRESS or LZX compressed WIM archives.
-Currently, the XPRESS compression ratio is slightly better than that provided by
-Microsoft's software, while the LZX compression ratio is approaching that of
-Microsoft's software but is not quite there yet. Running time is as good as or
-better than Microsoft's software, especially with multithreaded compression,
-available in wimlib v1.1.0 and later.
-
-The following tables compare the compression ratio and performance for creating
-a compressed Windows PE image (disk usage of about 524 MB, uncompressed WIM size
-361 MB):
-
- Table 1. WIM size
-
- XPRESS Compression LZX Compression
- wimlib-imagex (v1.2.1): 138,971,353 bytes 131,379,943 bytes
- Microsoft imagex.exe: 140,406,981 bytes 127,249,176 bytes
-
- Table 2. Time to create WIM
-
- XPRESS Compression LZX Compression
- wimlib-imagex (v1.2.1, 2 threads): 11 sec 17 sec
- Microsoft imagex.exe: 25 sec 89 sec
-
- NTFS SUPPORT
-
-WIM images may contain data, such as alternate data streams and
-compression/encryption flags, that are best represented on the NTFS filesystem
-used on Windows. Also, WIM images may contain security descriptors which are
-specific to Windows and cannot be represented on other operating systems.
-wimlib handles this NTFS-specific or Windows-specific data in a
-platform-dependent way:
-
- * In the Windows version of wimlib and wimlib-imagex, NTFS-specific and
- Windows-specific data are supported natively.
-
- * In the UNIX version of wimlib and wimlib-imagex, NTFS-specific and
- Windows-specific data are ordinarily ignored; however, there is also special
- support for capturing and extracting images directly to/from unmounted NTFS
- volumes. This was made possible with the help of libntfs-3g from the
- NTFS-3g project.
-
-For both platforms the code for NTFS capture and extraction is complete enough
-that it is possible to apply an image from the "install.wim" contained in recent
-Windows installation media (Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8) directly to a NTFS
-filesystem, and then boot Windows from it after preparing the Boot Configuration
-Data. In addition, a Windows installation can be captured (or backed up) into a
-WIM file, and then re-applied later.
-
- WINDOWS PE
-
-A major use for wimlib and wimlib-imagex is to create customized images of
-Windows PE, the Windows Preinstallation Environment, on either UNIX or Windows
-without having to rely on Microsoft's software and its restrictions and
-limitations.
-
-Windows PE is a lightweight version of Windows that can run entirely from memory
-and can be used to install Windows from local media or a network drive or
-perform maintenance. It is the operating system that runs when you boot from
-the Windows installation media.
-
-You can find Windows PE on the installation DVD for Windows Vista, Windows 7, or
-Windows 8, in the file `sources/boot.wim'. Windows PE can also be found in the
-Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK), which is free to download from
-Microsoft, inside the `WinPE.cab' file, which you can extract natively on
-Windows, or on UNIX if you install either the `cabextract' or `p7zip' programs.
-
-In addition, Windows installations and recovery partitions frequently contain a
-WIM containing an image of the Windows Recovery Environment, which is similar to
-Windows PE.
-
-A shell script `mkwinpeimg' is distributed with wimlib on UNIX to ease the
-process of creating and customizing a bootable Windows PE image.
-
- DEPENDENCIES
-
-This section documents the dependencies of wimlib and the programs distributed
-with it, when building for UNIX from source. If you have downloaded the Windows
-binary distribution of wimlib and wimlib-imagex then all dependencies were
-already included and this section is irrelevant.
-
-* libxml2 (required)
- This is a commonly used free library to read and write XML files. You
- likely already have it installed as a dependency for some other program.
- For more information see http://xmlsoft.org/.
-
-* libfuse (optional but highly recommended)
- Unless configured with --without-fuse, wimlib requires a non-ancient
- version of libfuse to be installed. Most Linux distributions already
- include this, but make sure you have the libfuse package installed, and
- also libfuse-dev if your distribution distributes header files
- separately. FUSE also requires a kernel module. If the kernel module
- is available it will automatically be loaded if you try to mount a WIM
- file. For more information see http://fuse.sourceforge.net/. FUSE is
- also available for FreeBSD.
-
-* libntfs-3g (optional but highly recommended)
- Unless configured with --without-ntfs-3g, wimlib requires the library
- and headers for libntfs-3g version 2011-4-12 or later to be installed.
- Versions dated 2010-3-6 and earlier do not work because they are missing
- the header xattrs.h (and the file xattrs.c, which contains functions we
- need). libntfs-3g version 2013-1-13 is compatible only with wimlib
- 1.2.4 and later.
-
-* OpenSSL / libcrypto (optional)
- wimlib can use the SHA1 message digest code from OpenSSL instead of
- compiling in yet another SHA1 implementation. (See LICENSE section.)
-
-* cdrkit (optional)
-* mtools (optional)
-* syslinux (optional)
-* cabextract (optional)
- The `mkwinpeimg' shell script will look for several other programs
- depending on what options are given to it. Depending on your Linux
- distribution, you may already have these programs installed, or they may
- be in the software repository. Making an ISO filesystem requires
- `mkisofs' from `cdrkit' (http://www.cdrkit.org). Making a disk image
- requires `mtools' (http://www.gnu.org/software/mtools) and `syslinux'
- (http://www.syslinux.org). Retrieving files from the Windows Automated
- Installation Kit requires `cabextract' (http://www.cabextract.org.uk).
-
- CONFIGURATION
-
-This section documents the most important options that may be passed to the
-"configure" script when building the UNIX version from source:
-
---without-ntfs-3g
- If libntfs-3g is not available or is not version 2011-4-12 or later,
- wimlib can be built without it, in which case it will not be possible to
- apply or capture images directly to/from NTFS volumes.
-
---without-fuse
- If libfuse or the FUSE kernel module is not available, wimlib can be
- compiled with --without-fuse. This will remove the ability to mount and
- unmount WIM files.
-
---without-libcrypto
- Build in functions for SHA1 rather than using external SHA1 functions
- from libcrypto (part of OpenSSL). The default is to use libcrypto if it
- is found on the system.
-
---enable-xattr, --disable-xattr
- Enable or disable support for the extended-attributes interface to NTFS
- alternate data streams in mounted WIMs. To support these, wimlib
- requires that the setxattr() function and the attr/xattr.h header are
- available. The default is to autodetect whether support is possible.
-
---disable-multithreaded-compression
- By default, data will be compressed using multiple threads when writing
- a WIM, unless only 1 processor is detected. Specify this option to
- disable support for this.
-
---enable-ssse3-sha1
- Use a very fast assembly language implementation of SHA1 from Intel.
- Only use this if the build target supports the SSSE3 instructions.
-
---disable-error-messages
- Save some space by removing all error messages from the library.
-
---disable-assertions
- Remove assertions included by default.
-
- PORTABILITY
-
-wimlib has primarily been tested on Linux and Windows (primarily Windows 7, but
-also Windows XP and Windows 8).
-
-wimlib may work on FreeBSD and Mac OS X. However, this is not well tested. If
-you do not have libntfs-3g 2011-4-12 or later available, you must configure
-wimlib with --without-ntfs-3g. On FreeBSD, before mounting a WIM you need to
-load the POSIX message queue module (run `kldload mqueuefs').
-
-wimlib has not been tested on big-endian CPU architectures.
-
- REFERENCES
-
-The WIM file format is specified in a document that can be found in the
-Microsoft Download Center. There is a similar document that specifies the LZX
-compression format, and a document that specifies the XPRESS compression format.
-However, many parts of these formats are poorly documented, and some parts have
-no documentation whatsoever. Some particularly poorly documented parts of the
-formats have had comments added in various places in the library code. Please
-see the code and/or ask me if you have any questions about the WIM file format
-as it exists in reality and not as it exists in Microsoft's poorly written
-documentation.
-
-The code in ntfs-apply.c and ntfs-capture.c uses the NTFS-3g library, which is a
-library for reading and writing to NTFS filesystems (the filesystem used by
-recent versions of Windows). See
-http://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-download/ for more information.
-
-lzx-decompress.c, the code to decompress WIM file resources that are compressed
-using LZX compression, was originally based on code from the cabextract project
-(http://www.cabextract.org.uk) but has been rewritten.
-
-lzx-compress.c, the code to compress WIM file resources using LZX compression,
-was originally based on code written by Matthew Russotto (www.russotto.net/chm/)
-but has been rewritten.
-
-lz77.c, the code to find LZ77 matches (used for both XPRESS and LZX
-compression), is based on code from zlib but has been rewritten.
-
-A limited number of other free programs can handle some parts of the WIM
-file format:
-
- * 7-zip is able to extract and create WIMs (as well as files in many
- other archive formats). However, wimlib is designed specifically to handle
- WIM files and provides features previously only available in Microsoft's
- imagex.exe, such as the ability to mount WIMs read-write as well as
- read-only, the ability to create LZX or XPRESS compressed WIMs, and the
- correct handling of security descriptors and hard links.
- * ImagePyX (https://github.com/maxpat78/ImagePyX) is a Python program that
- provides similar capabilities to wimlib-imagex. One thing to note, though,
- is that it does not support compression and decompression by itself, but
- instead relies on external native code, such as the codecs from wimlib.
-
-A very early version of wimlib is being used to deploy Windows 7 from the
-Ultimate Deployment Appliance. For more information see
-http://www.ultimatedeployment.org/.
-
-You can see the documentation about Microsoft's version of ImageX at
-http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749447(v=ws.10).aspx, so you can
-see how it compares to the version provided by this library.
-
-If you are looking for a UNIX archive format that provides features similar to
-WIM, I recommend you take a look at SquashFS (http://squashfs.sourceforge.net/).
-
- LICENSE
-
-As of version 1.0.0, wimlib and all programs and scripts distributed with it are
-released under the GNU GPL version 3.0 or later.
-
-wimlib is independently developed and does not contain any code, data, or files
-copyrighted by Microsoft. It is not known to be affected by any patents.
-
-On UNIX, if you do not want wimlib to be dynamically linked with libcrypto
-(OpenSSL), configure with --without-libcrypto. This replaces the SHA1
-implementation with built-in code and there will be no difference in
-functionality.
-
- DISCLAIMER
-
-wimlib comes with no warranty whatsoever. Use Microsoft's `imagex.exe' if you
-want to make sure your WIM files are made "correctly" (but beware: Microsoft's
-version contains some bugs).
-
-Please submit a bug report (to ebiggers3@gmail.com) if you find a bug in wimlib
-and/or wimlib-imagex.
-
-Be aware that some parts of the WIM file format are poorly documented or even
-completely undocumented, so I've just had to do the best I can to read and write
-WIMs that appear to be compatible with Microsoft's software.
git://wimlib.net / wimlib / blobdiff