WIMLIB
-This is wimlib version 1.0.4 (October 2012). wimlib can be used to read,
-write, and mount files in the Windows Imaging Format (WIM files). These
-files are normally created by using the `imagex.exe' utility on Windows,
-but this library provides a free implementation of imagex for UNIX-based
-systems.
+This is wimlib version 1.2.0 (November 2012). wimlib can be used to read,
+write, and mount files in the Windows Imaging Format (WIM files). These files
+are normally created by using the `imagex.exe' utility on Windows, but this
+library provides a free implementation of imagex for UNIX-based systems.
WIM FILES
Microsoft provides documentation for the WIM file format, XPRESS compression
format, and LZX compression format. The XPRESS documentation is acceptable, but
the LZX documentation is not entirely correct, and the WIM documentation itself
-is very incomplete and is of unacceptable quality.
+is incomplete.
A WIM file may be either stand-alone or split into multiple parts.
- WINDOWS PE
-
-A major use for this library is to create customized images of Windows PE, the
-Windows Preinstallation Environment, without having to rely on Windows. 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. Windows PE 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 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.
-
- NTFS SUPPORT
-
-As of version 1.0.0, wimlib supports capturing and applying images directly to
-NTFS volumes. This was made possible with the help of libntfs-3g from the
-NTFS-3g project. This feature supports capturing and restoring NTFS-specific
-data such as security descriptors, alternate data streams, and reparse point
-data.
-
-The code for NTFS image capture and image application 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 volume,
-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.
-
PROGRAMS
wimlib provides a public API for other programs to use, but also comes with two
`mkwinpeimg' is shell script that makes it easy to create a customized bootable
image of Windows PE that can be put on a CD or USB drive, or published on a
-server for PXE booting. See the main page `doc/mkwinpeiso.1' for more details.
+server for PXE booting. See the main page `doc/mkwinpeimg.1' for more details.
+
+There is an additional program, `wimapply', that is not installed by default.
+It can be used to build a small executable with the ability to apply a WIM image
+from a standalone WIM, without having to build the whole shared library. This
+could be useful on Linux boot clients that only need to be able to apply a WIM,
+not capture/split/join/append/export/mount a WIM. See `programs/wimapply.c'.
COMPRESSION RATIO
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.
+better than Microsoft's software, especially with multithreaded compression,
+available in 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
Table 2. Time to create WIM
- XPRESS Compression LZX Compression
- wimlib imagex (v1.0.2): 18 sec 49 sec
- wimlib imagex (v1.0.3): 19 sec 30 sec
- Microsoft imagex.exe: 25 sec 89 sec
+ XPRESS Compression LZX Compression
+ wimlib imagex (v1.0.2): 18 sec 49 sec
+ wimlib imagex (v1.0.3): 19 sec 30 sec
+ wimlib imagex (v1.1.0, 2 threads): 11 sec 17 sec
+ Microsoft imagex.exe: 25 sec 89 sec
+ NTFS SUPPORT
+
+As of version 1.0.0, wimlib supports capturing and applying images directly to
+NTFS volumes. This was made possible with the help of libntfs-3g from the
+NTFS-3g project. This feature supports capturing and restoring NTFS-specific
+data such as security descriptors, alternate data streams, and reparse point
+data.
+
+The code for NTFS image capture and image application 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 volume,
+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 this library is to create customized images of Windows PE, the
+Windows Preinstallation Environment, without having to rely on Windows. 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. Windows PE 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 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.
DEPENDENCIES
-* libxml2
+* 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
+* libfuse (optional but highly recommended)
Unless configured with --without-fuse, wimlib requires a non-ancient
version of libfuse to be installed. Most GNU/Linux distributions
already include this, but make sure you have the libfuse package
a WIM file. For more information see http://fuse.sourceforge.net/.
FUSE is also available for FreeBSD.
-* libntfs-3g
+* 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).
+* 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)
(http://www.syslinux.org). Retrieving files from the Windows Automated
Installation Kit requires `cabextract' (http://www.cabextract.org.uk).
-
CONFIGURATION
Besides the various well-known options, the following options can be passed to
wimlib's `configure' script:
--without-ntfs-3g
- If libntfs-3g is not available or is not the correct version, we can
- build without it. wimlib will then not be able to apply or capture
+ If libntfs-3g is not available or is not version 2011-4-12 or later, we
+ can build without it. wimlib will then not be able to apply or capture
images directly to NTFS volumes.
--without-fuse
the setxattr() function and the attr/xattr.h header be 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-assertions
Remove all assertions. Without this option, wimlib will abort() the
program if an assertion fails. An assertion failure should only occur
- if there is a bug in wimlib.
+ if there is a bug in the library.
--enable-debug
Include debugging messages. Only use this option if you have found a
It has been tested on x86 (32-bit) GNU/Linux occasionally.
-wimlib may work on FreeBSD. However, this is not well tested. If you do not
-have libntfs-3g 2011-4-12 or later available, you must configure with
---without-ntfs-3g. Also, GNU coreutils is needed to run the test suite. Before
-mounting a WIM you need to load the POSIX message queue module (run `kldload
-mqueuefs').
+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 with
+--without-ntfs-3g. On FreeBSD, before mounting a WIM you need to load the POSIX
+message queue module (run `kldload mqueuefs').
wimlib should work on big endian machines but it has not been tested.
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.
+By default, wimlib will be linked to the system library "libcrypto", which
+probably will be OpenSSL. Some people believe that GPL code cannot be linked to
+OpenSSL without a linking exception. As far as I know, I cannot officially
+include a linking exception with the license of this library because several
+files could be considered derived works of LGPL code copyrighted by others. If
+you believe this to be a problem, configure with --without-libcrypto to avoid
+linking with OpenSSL. There is no difference in functionality--- there will
+just be stand-alone SHA1 message digest code built into the library.
+
DISCLAIMER
wimlib is experimental. Use Microsoft's `imagex.exe' if you want to make sure
git://wimlib.net / wimlib / blobdiff