INTRODUCTION
-This is wimlib version 1.8.4-BETA (December 2015). wimlib is a C library for
+This is wimlib version 1.11.0 (January 2017). wimlib is a C library for
creating, modifying, extracting, and mounting files in the Windows Imaging
Format (WIM files). wimlib and its command-line frontend 'wimlib-imagex'
provide a free and cross-platform alternative to Microsoft's WIMGAPI, ImageX,
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:
+commands and their syntax. Note that the commands have both long and short
+forms, e.g. `wimlib-imagex apply' is equivalent to `wimapply'. For additional
+documentation:
* If you have installed wimlib-imagex on a UNIX-like system, 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, LZX, or LZMS compressed WIM files.
-wimlib's compression codecs usually outperform and outcompress their Microsoft
-equivalents. Although results will vary depending on the data being compressed,
-the table below shows results for a common use case: creating an x86 Windows PE
-image ("boot.wim"). Each row shows the compression type, the size of the
-resulting WIM file in bytes, and the time it took to create the file. When
-possible, the results with the Microsoft equivalent are included.
-
- =============================================================================
- | Compression || wimlib (v1.8.3) | WIMGAPI (Windows 10) |
- =============================================================================
- | None [1] || 361,314,224 in 2.7s | 361,315,338 in 3.0s |
- | XPRESS [2] || 137,954,729 in 3.0s | 140,457,081 in 6.4s |
- | XPRESS (slow) [3] || 135,147,054 in 8.0s | N/A |
- | LZX (quick) [4] || 130,098,933 in 3.3s | N/A |
- | LZX (normal) [5] || 126,310,241 in 9.9s | 127,293,110 in 18.5s |
- | LZX (slow) [6] || 125,884,919 in 17.4s | N/A |
- | LZMS (non-solid) [7] || 116,150,698 in 23.4s | N/A |
- | LZMS (solid) [8] || 88,108,326 in 55.6s | 88,771,800 in 90.9s |
- | "WIMBoot" [9] || 166,892,801 in 3.0s | 169,108,689 in 8.9s |
- | "WIMBoot" (slow) [10] || 165,004,333 in 7.8s | N/A |
- =============================================================================
-
-Notes:
- [1] '--compress=none' for wimlib-imagex; '/compress:none' for DISM.
-
- [2] '--compress=XPRESS' for wimlib-imagex; '/compress:fast' for DISM.
- Compression chunk size defaults to 32768 bytes in both cases.
-
- [3] '--compress=XPRESS:80' for wimlib-imagex; no known equivalent for DISM.
- Compression chunk size defaults to 32768 bytes.
-
- [4] '--compress=LZX:20' for wimlib-imagex; no known equivalent for DISM.
- Compression chunk size defaults to 32768 bytes.
-
- [5] '--compress=LZX' or '--compress=LZX:50' or no option for wimlib-imagex;
- '/compress:maximum' for DISM.
- Compression chunk size defaults to 32768 bytes in both cases.
-
- [6] '--compress=LZX:100' for wimlib-imagex; no known equivalent for DISM.
- Compression chunk size defaults to 32768 bytes.
-
- [7] '--compress=LZMS' for wimlib-imagex; no known equivalent for DISM.
- Compression chunk size defaults to 131072 bytes.
-
- [8] '--solid' for wimlib-imagex. Should be '/compress:recovery' for DISM,
- but only works for /Export-Image, not /Capture-Image. Compression chunk
- size in solid resources defaults to 67108864 bytes in both cases.
-
- [9] '--wimboot' for wimlib-imagex; '/wimboot' for DISM.
- This is really XPRESS compression with 4096 byte chunks, so the same as
- '--compress=XPRESS --chunk-size=4096'.
-
- [10] '--wimboot --compress=XPRESS:80' for wimlib-imagex;
- no known equivalent for DISM.
- Same format as [9], but trying harder to get a good compression ratio.
-
-Note: wimlib-imagex's --compress option also accepts the "fast", "maximum", and
-"recovery" aliases for XPRESS, LZX, and LZMS, respectively.
-
-Testing environment:
-
- - 64 bit binaries
- - Windows 10 virtual machine running on Linux with VT-x
- - 4 CPUs and 4 GiB memory given to virtual machine
- - SSD-backed virtual disk
- - All tests done with page cache warmed
-
-The compression ratio provided by wimlib is also competitive with commonly used
-archive formats. Below are file sizes that result when the Canterbury corpus is
-compressed with wimlib (v1.8.3), WIMGAPI (Windows 8.1), and some other
-formats/programs:
-
- =====================================================
- | Format | Size (bytes) |
- =====================================================
- | tar | 2,826,240 |
- | WIM (WIMGAPI, None) | 2,814,254 |
- | WIM (wimlib, None) | 2,814,216 |
- | WIM (WIMGAPI, XPRESS) | 825,536 |
- | WIM (wimlib, XPRESS) | 787,356 |
- | tar.gz (gzip, default) | 738,796 |
- | ZIP (Info-ZIP, default) | 735,334 |
- | tar.gz (gzip, -9) | 733,971 |
- | ZIP (Info-ZIP, -9) | 732,297 |
- | WIM (wimlib, LZX quick) | 686,420 |
- | WIM (WIMGAPI, LZX) | 651,866 |
- | WIM (wimlib, LZX normal) | 623,718 |
- | WIM (wimlib, LZX slow) | 619,382 |
- | WIM (wimlib, LZMS non-solid) | 581,046 |
- | tar.bz2 (bzip, default) | 565,008 |
- | tar.bz2 (bzip, -9) | 565,008 |
- | WIM (WIMGAPI, LZMS solid) | 521,366 |
- | WIM (wimlib, LZMS solid) | 515,800 |
- | tar.xz (xz, default) | 486,916 |
- | tar.xz (xz, -9) | 486,904 |
- | 7z (7-zip, default) | 484,700 |
- | 7z (7-zip, -9) | 483,239 |
- =====================================================
-
-Note: WIM does even better on directory trees containing duplicate files, which
-the Canterbury corpus doesn't have.
+ documentation for wimlib-imagex in PDF format in the "doc" directory. Note
+ that although the documentation is written in the style of UNIX manual
+ pages, it does document Windows-specific behavior when relevant.
+
+ COMPRESSION
+
+wimlib (and wimlib-imagex) can create XPRESS, LZX, and LZMS compressed WIM
+archives. wimlib's compression codecs usually outperform and outcompress their
+closed-source Microsoft equivalents. Multiple compression levels and chunk
+sizes as well as solid mode compression are supported. Compression is
+multithreaded by default. Detailed benchmark results and descriptions of the
+algorithms used can be found at https://wimlib.net/compression.html.
NTFS SUPPORT
-WIM images may contain data, such as alternate data streams and
+WIM images may contain data, such as named 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.
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.
+ 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 PE
-A major use for wimlib and wimlib-imagex is to create customized images of
-Windows PE, the Windows Preinstallation Environment, on either UNIX-like systems
-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.
+wimlib can also be used to create customized images of Windows PE on either
+UNIX-like systems or Windows. Windows PE (Preinstallation Environment) is a
+lightweight version of Windows that runs entirely from memory and can be used to
+perform maintenance or to install Windows. It is the operating system that runs
+when you boot from the Windows installation media.
-You can find Windows PE on the installation media for Windows (Vista or later)
-as 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-like systems if you install either the `cabextract' or `p7zip' programs.
+A copy of Windows PE can be found on the installation media for Windows (Vista
+or later) as the file `sources/boot.wim', or in the Windows Automated
+Installation Kit (WAIK), which is free to download from Microsoft.
-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-like systems to
-ease the process of creating and customizing a bootable Windows PE image.
+A shell script `mkwinpeimg' is provided with wimlib on UNIX-like systems to
+simplify the process of creating and customizing a bootable Windows PE image,
+sourcing the needed files from the Windows installation media or from the WAIK.
DEPENDENCIES
automatically be loaded if you try to mount a WIM image. For more
information see http://fuse.sourceforge.net/.
-* libattr (optional but recommended)
- Unless configured --without-fuse, wimlib also requires libattr. Almost
- all Linux distributions should include this; however, you may need to
- install the header files, which might be in a package named "attr-dev",
- "libattr1-dev", or similar.
-
* libntfs-3g (optional but recommended)
Unless configured --without-ntfs-3g, wimlib requires the library and
- headers for libntfs-3g version 2011-4-12 or later to be installed.
+ headers for libntfs-3g to be installed. The minimum required version is
+ 2011-4-12, but newer versions contain important bug fixes.
* OpenSSL / libcrypto (optional)
wimlib can use the SHA-1 message digest implementation from libcrypto
--without-fuse
The --without-fuse option disables support for mounting WIM images.
- This removes dependencies on libfuse, librt, and libattr. The wimmount,
+ This removes dependencies on libfuse and librt. The wimmount,
wimmountrw, and wimunmount commands will not work.
The default is --with-fuse when building for Linux, and --without-fuse
As much code as possible is shared among all supported platforms, but there
necessarily are some differences in what features are supported on each platform
and how they are implemented. Most notable is that file tree scanning and
-extraction are implemented separately for Windows, UNIX, and UNIX (NTFS-3g
+extraction are implemented separately for Windows, UNIX, and UNIX (NTFS-3G
mode), to ensure a fast and feature-rich implementation of each platform/mode.
wimlib is mainly used on x86 and x86_64 CPUs, but it should also work on a
inspired by a variety of sources, including open source projects and computer
science papers.
-The code in ntfs-3g_apply.c and ntfs-3g_capture.c uses the NTFS-3g library,
+The code in ntfs-3g_apply.c and ntfs-3g_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.
+http://www.tuxera.com/community/open-source-ntfs-3g/ for more information.
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
+ * 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
implementation, such as the ability to mount WIMs read-write as well as
but was designed primarily for UNIX, you may want to consider SquashFS
(http://squashfs.sourceforge.net/). However, you may find that wimlib works
surprisingly well on UNIX. It will store hard links and symbolic links, and it
-has optional support for storing UNIX owners, groups, modes, and special files
-such as device nodes and FIFOs. Actually, I use it to back up my own files on
-Linux!
+supports storing standard UNIX file permissions (owners, groups, and modes);
+special files such as device nodes and FIFOs; and extended attributes.
+Actually, I use it to back up my own files on Linux!
HISTORY
Windows support has been available since version 1.3.0 (March 2013). A list of
version-to-version changes can be found in the NEWS file.
- LICENSE AND DISCLAIMER
+ NOTICES
+
+wimlib is free software that comes with NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by
+law. See the COPYING file for more details.
-See COPYING for information about the license.
+Bug reports, suggestions, and other contributions are appreciated and may be
+sent via email to ebiggers3@gmail.com or posted to https://wimlib.net/forums.
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.
implementation with built-in code and there will be no difference in
functionality.
-wimlib comes with no warranty whatsoever. Please submit a bug report (to
-ebiggers3@gmail.com) if you find a bug in wimlib and/or wimlib-imagex.
+Note: copyright years may be listed using range notation, e.g., 2012-2016,
+indicating that every year in the range, inclusive, is a copyrightable year that
+would otherwise be listed individually.
git://wimlib.net / wimlib / blobdiff