1WIMLIB-IMAGEX(1)                 User Commands                WIMLIB-IMAGEX(1)
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NAME

6       wimlib-imagex - Extract, create, modify, or mount a WIM archive
7

SYNOPSIS

9       wimlib-imagex append arguments... (or wimappend arguments...)
10       wimlib-imagex apply arguments... (or wimapply arguments...)
11       wimlib-imagex capture arguments... (or wimcapture arguments...)
12       wimlib-imagex delete arguments... (or wimdelete arguments...)
13       wimlib-imagex dir arguments... (or wimdir arguments...)
14       wimlib-imagex export arguments... (or wimexport arguments...)
15       wimlib-imagex extract arguments... (or wimextract arguments...)
16       wimlib-imagex info arguments... (or wiminfo arguments...)
17       wimlib-imagex join arguments... (or wimjoin arguments...)
18       wimlib-imagex mount arguments... (or wimmount arguments...)
19       wimlib-imagex mountrw arguments... (or wimmountrw arguments...)
20       wimlib-imagex optimize arguments... (or wimoptimize arguments...)
21       wimlib-imagex split arguments... (or wimsplit arguments...)
22       wimlib-imagex unmount arguments... (or wimunmount arguments...)
23       wimlib-imagex update arguments... (or wimupdate arguments...)
24       wimlib-imagex verify arguments... (or wimverify arguments...)
25

DESCRIPTION

27       wimlib-imagex  deals  with  archive  files in the Windows Imaging (WIM)
28       format.  Its interface is similar to Microsoft's  ImageX,  but  wimlib-
29       imagex is cross-platform and has useful improvements and extensions.
30
31       To  do  its  work,  wimlib-imagex uses wimlib, an open source C library
32       that provides interfaces for manipulating WIM archives.  wimlib is com‐
33       pletely  independent from the equivalent Microsoft implementation (WIM‐
34       GAPI, or wimgapi.dll).  You  can  use  wimlib  in  your  own  programs,
35       although  for command-line use wimlib-imagex already provides access to
36       most of wimlib's functionality.
37

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

39       The Windows Imaging (WIM) format was designed  by  Microsoft  primarily
40       for  archiving  Windows  filesystems, such as NTFS.  However, it can be
41       used on other platforms as well, with some limitations.  A WIM  archive
42       contains  one  or more images, each of which is a logically independent
43       directory tree.  Images are indexed starting from 1, and each may  also
44       have  a  name.  File data is stored as content-addressable "blobs" that
45       are deduplicated across the entire archive.   Data  may  be  compressed
46       using one of several compression algorithms.
47
48       An  update  of  the  WIM format which Microsoft released with Windows 8
49       uses solid-mode LZMS compression to achieve a better compression ratio.
50       Such  files are also called "ESD files" and may have the .esd extension
51       instead of .wim.  wimlib fully supports these files  except  when  they
52       are encrypted.
53

COMMANDS

55       wimlib-imagex accepts one of a number of commands (listed above in SYN‐
56       OPSYS), and additional arguments depending  on  the  specific  command.
57       Although  wimlib-imagex  will print usage information with --help or if
58       you invoke it incorrectly, the  full  documentation  for  each  wimlib-
59       imagex command can be found in the appropriate manual page.
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61       Note:  if  appropriate hard links or batch files have been installed, a
62       command wimlib-imagex COMMAND can also be accessed  as  simply  wimCOM‐
63       MAND;  for  example, wimapply for wimlib-imagex apply.  For brevity the
64       documentation uses the shorter names.
65

GENERAL FEATURES

67       The following are some of the general features, or use cases, currently
68       supported by wimlib-imagex, and pointers to the relevant commands:
69
70       ·   Display information about a WIM file (wiminfo)
71
72       ·   List the files in a WIM image (wimdir)
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74       ·   Extract, or "apply", a full WIM image (wimapply)
75
76       ·   Extract files or directories from a WIM image (wimextract)
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78       ·   Capture a WIM image and save it to a new WIM file (wimcapture)
79
80       ·   Capture  a  WIM image and append it to an existing WIM file (wimap‐
81           pend)
82
83       ·   Modify a WIM image by adding, deleting, or renaming  files  (wimup‐
84           date)
85
86       ·   (Linux only) Mount a WIM image read-only (wimmount)
87
88       ·   (Linux only) Mount a WIM image read-write (wimmountrw)
89
90       ·   Delete an image from a WIM file (wimdelete)
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92       ·   Export image(s) from a WIM file (wimexport)
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94       ·   Change the name or description of a WIM image (wiminfo)
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96       ·   Change the bootable image index of a WIM file (wiminfo)
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98       ·   Rebuild, and optionally recompress, a WIM file (wimoptimize)
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100       ·   Split a WIM file into multiple parts (wimsplit)
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102       ·   Join a split WIM (wimjoin)
103
104       ·   Verify the validity and integrity of a WIM file (wimverify)
105

DETAILED FEATURES

107       This section presents some of the interesting features of wimlib-imagex
108       in more detail.
109
110       ·   Multi-platform support.  wimlib-imagex is supported on  both  UNIX-
111           like  systems  (mainly Linux, but also FreeBSD, Mac OS X, etc.) and
112           Windows.  Most code is shared among all  platforms,  but  platform-
113           specific features are still supported when possible.
114
115       ·   XPRESS,  LZX,  and LZMS compression and decompression.  wimlib con‐
116           tains advanced implementations of all these compression algorithms.
117           These  have  been improved over time and now usually outperform and
118           outcompress their Microsoft equivalents, while remaining fully com‐
119           patible.
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121       ·   Solid-mode  compression, or "ESD file", support. "ESD files" are an
122           updated WIM format that uses solid LZMS compression  to  achieve  a
123           better compression ratio.
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125       ·   Multithreaded  compression.   By default, wimlib's data compression
126           is multithreaded and will use all available processors.
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128       ·   On UNIX-like systems, integration with libntfs-3g allows  capturing
129           a  WIM  image directly from an NTFS volume, or applying a WIM image
130           directly to an NTFS volume.  This allows saving and restoring NTFS-
131           specific  data and metadata, such as security descriptors and named
132           data streams, which would otherwise only be supported on Windows.
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134       ·   On UNIX-like systems, optional support  for  saving  and  restoring
135           standard  UNIX  file  permissions  (owner/group/mode), UNIX special
136           files, and extended attributes.  (This is a wimlib  extension;  Mi‐
137           crosoft's WIM software ignores this extra information.)
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139       ·   On  Linux, support for mounting WIM images with FUSE (Filesystem in
140           UserSpacE), both readonly and read-write.
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142       ·   Split WIMs.  A split WIM is  a  WIM  archive  split  into  multiple
143           parts.   wimsplit can create a split WIM from a standalone WIM, and
144           wimjoin can create a standalone WIM from a split WIM.
145
146       ·   Delta WIMs.  A delta WIM contains image metadata but excludes  file
147           data  already present in another WIM file.  A delta WIM can be cre‐
148           ated using wimcapture with the --delta-from option.
149
150       ·   "Pipable" WIMs.  As a wimlib extension (not compatible with the Mi‐
151           crosoft  implementation),  wimcapture supports capturing a WIM file
152           to standard output in a special "pipable" format which can later be
153           applied  by  sending it to wimapply on standard input.  Among other
154           things, this can be used to pipe images to or from  a  server  over
155           the network to implement fast filesystem imaging and restore.
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157       ·   Support  for  WIM  integrity tables.  Although file data in WIM ar‐
158           chives is always checksummed, there can also be  an  extra  set  of
159           checksums  (an  "integrity  table")  associated  with  the WIM file
160           itself to provide extra integrity assurance.  The --check option to
161           several  wimlib-imagex  commands can be used to verify or add these
162           extra checksums.
163
164       ·   Fast  incremental  backups.   Because  WIM  archives  use  content-
165           addressible  file  data,  the  contents  of files are automatically
166           deduplicated.  In addition, using the --update-of option of wimcap‐
167           ture  or wimappend, you can optimize an image capture so that files
168           that are unmodified based on timestamps  are  not  even  read  from
169           disk.
170
171       ·   Windows-specific  image  metadata support.  When capturing an image
172           of a Windows operating system, wimlib will  automatically  populate
173           XML metadata fields such as the Windows OS version details by scan‐
174           ning well-known system files.
175
176       ·   WIMBoot support.  On Windows 8.1 and later, files  can  be  "exter‐
177           nally backed" by a WIM archive with the help of Microsoft's Windows
178           Overlay Filesystem (WOF) filter driver.  With the --wimboot option,
179           wimapply  will  extract  "pointer  files" to the WIM archive rather
180           than the files themselves.
181
182       ·   VSS snapshot support.  On Windows, wimcapture or wimappend with the
183           --snapshot  option  will automatically create a temporary VSS snap‐
184           shot and capture the image from it.  This can be used  to  image  a
185           "live" Windows system.
186
187       ·   Long  path support on Windows.  wimlib-imagex can capture and apply
188           files with paths exceeding the MAX_PATH (260 character)  limitation
189           of the Win32 subsystem.
190
191       ·   Non-Administrator  support  on  Windows.  You can run wimlib-imagex
192           without Administrator rights, subject to some limitations.
193

COMMON OPTIONS

195       The following options work for all wimlib-imagex commands:
196
197       --help
198             Display the help, then exit.
199
200       --version
201             Display the version and legal information, then exit.
202
203       --quiet
204             Suppress informational and progress messages.
205

CASE SENSITIVITY

207       By default, the case  sensitivity  of  wimlib-imagex  differs  somewhat
208       between  UNIX-like systems and Windows.  WIM images may (but usually do
209       not) have multiple files with the same case-insensitive  name.   Inter‐
210       nally,  wimlib stores filenames as case-sensitive, but on Windows paths
211       actually provided by the user for use in a WIM image (e.g. for extract‐
212       ing, adding, renaming, or deleting files) will by default be treated as
213       case-insensitive in order to get the "expected" behavior. This  differs
214       from  the  default behavior on UNIX-like systems, where such paths will
215       be treated as case-sensitive.
216
217       Note that with case insensitivity, a path component may in  general  be
218       ambiguous  due  to  multiple files or directories having the same case-
219       insensitive name.  In such cases, if there is a file or directory  with
220       an  exactly  matching  name,  it is chosen; otherwise, one of the case-
221       insensitively matching file or directories is chosen arbitrarily.
222
223       The default case sensitivity of  wimlib-imagex  can  be  overridden  by
224       explicitly setting the environmental variable WIMLIB_IMAGEX_IGNORE_CASE
225       to 1, in which case such paths will be treated case  insensitively,  or
226       0, in which such paths will be treated case sensitively.
227
228       Regardless  of  these  settings, options and non-path arguments must be
229       specified in lower case.
230

LICENSE

232       wimlib-imagex may be redistributed and/or modified under the  terms  of
233       the GNU General Public License; either version 3 of the License, or (at
234       your option) any later version.  There is NO WARRANTY,  to  the  extent
235       permitted by law.
236

REPORTING BUGS

238       Report  bugs  to  https://wimlib.net/forums/.  Feedback and suggestions
239       are also welcome.
240

SEE ALSO

242       wimappend(1), wimapply(1), wimcapture(1), wimdelete(1), wimdir(1), wim‐
243       export(1), wimextract(1), wiminfo(1), wimjoin(1), wimmount(1), wimmoun‐
244       trw(1),  wimoptimize(1),  wimsplit(1),   wimunmount(1),   wimupdate(1),
245       wimverify(1),
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248
249wimlib 1.13.3                    October 2020                 WIMLIB-IMAGEX(1)
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