1WIMAPPLY(1)                      User Commands                     WIMAPPLY(1)
2
3
4

NAME

6       wimapply - Apply a WIM image
7

SYNOPSIS

9       wimapply WIMFILE [IMAGE] TARGET [OPTION...]
10

DESCRIPTION

12       wimapply,  or equivalently wimlib-imagex apply, extracts ("applies") an
13       image, or all images, from the Windows Imaging (WIM) archive WIMFILE.
14
15       IMAGE specifies the image in WIMFILE to extract.  It may be the 1-based
16       index  of an image, the name of an image, or the keyword "all" to spec‐
17       ify all images.  It may be omitted if WIMFILE contains only one  image.
18       You can use wiminfo(1) to list the images contained in WIMFILE.
19
20       TARGET  specifies  where  to  extract  the image(s) to.  If TARGET is a
21       directory, then the image(s) will be extracted to that directory as per
22       DIRECTORY EXTRACTION (UNIX) or DIRECTORY EXTRACTION (WINDOWS).  If TAR‐
23       GET does not exist, then a  directory  will  be  created  there  first.
24       Alternatively,  if TARGET specifies a UNIX block device, then the image
25       will be extracted to it as described in NTFS VOLUME EXTRACTION (UNIX).
26
27       Note that wimapply is designed to extract, or "apply", full WIM images.
28       If you instead want to extract only certain files or directories from a
29       WIM image, use wimextract(1) instead.
30
31       If IMAGE is "all", then all images in WIMFILE will  be  extracted  into
32       subdirectories  of  TARGET  named after the images, falling back to the
33       image index when an image has no name or an unusual name.  This is  not
34       yet supported in NTFS VOLUME EXTRACTION (UNIX) mode.
35
36       If WIMFILE is "-", then the WIM is read from standard input rather than
37       from disk.  See PIPABLE WIMS for more information.
38

DIRECTORY EXTRACTION (UNIX)

40       On UNIX-like systems, a WIM image may  be  extracted  to  a  directory.
41       This  mode  has  the  limitation that NTFS or Windows-specific metadata
42       will not be extracted.  Although some concepts such as hard links, sym‐
43       bolic  links,  last access timestamps, and last modification timestamps
44       will be translated to their UNIX equivalents, other  metadata  will  be
45       lost  (with  warnings given).  Notably, the following types of metadata
46       will not be extracted in this mode:
47
48       ·   Windows file attribute flags
49
50       ·   Windows security descriptors (e.g. file owners and DACLs)
51
52       ·   File creation timestamps
53
54       ·   Reparse points other than symbolic links and junction points
55
56       ·   Named data streams
57
58       ·   Short filenames (also known as 8.3 names or DOS names).
59
60       ·   Object IDs
61
62       These same limitations apply to wimextract.  As such, this mode is most
63       useful  in  situations where NTFS or Windows-specific metadata is unim‐
64       portant, e.g. when wanting to extract specific  files,  or  when  doing
65       file  archiving only on UNIX-like systems, possibly in combination with
66       --unix-data.  When Windows-specific metadata is important, then  either
67       the  NTFS  VOLUME EXTRACTION (UNIX) mode should be used, or the Windows
68       version of wimlib should be used (see DIRECTORY EXTRACTION (WINDOWS)).
69

NTFS VOLUME EXTRACTION (UNIX)

71       On UNIX-like systems, TARGET may also be specified as  a  block  device
72       (e.g.   /dev/sda3)  containing an unmounted NTFS volume.  In this mode,
73       wimapply uses libntfs-3g to apply the specified WIM image to  the  root
74       directory  of the NTFS volume.  The target volume should be empty, e.g.
75       newly created by mkntfs(8).  In this mode, NTFS-specific  and  Windows-
76       specific data and metadata will be extracted, including the following:
77
78       ·   All data streams of all files except encrypted files, including the
79           unnamed data stream as well as all named data streams.
80
81       ·   Reparse points, including  symbolic  links,  junction  points,  and
82           other reparse points.
83
84       ·   File  and  directory creation, access, and modification timestamps,
85           using the native NTFS resolution of 100 nanoseconds.
86
87       ·   Windows security  descriptors,  including  all  components  (owner,
88           group, DACL, and SACL).
89
90       ·   Windows file attribute flags
91
92       ·   All names of all files, including names in the Win32 namespace, DOS
93           namespace, Win32+DOS namespace, and POSIX namespace.  This includes
94           hard links.
95
96       ·   Object IDs.
97
98       However, encrypted files will not be extracted.
99
100       Restoring  extended  attributes (EAs) is also not yet supported in this
101       mode.
102
103       Regardless, since almost all information from the WIM image is restored
104       in  this mode, it is possible (and fully supported) to restore an image
105       of an actual Windows installation using wimapply on a UNIX-like  system
106       as  an  alternative to using wimapply or DISM on Windows.  In the EXAM‐
107       PLES section below, there is an example of applying an  image  from  an
108       "install.wim" file as may be found in the Windows installation media.
109
110       Note  that  to  actually  boot Windows (Vista or later) from an applied
111       "install.wim" image, you also need to mark the partition as  "bootable"
112       and  set  up  various  boot files, such as \BOOTMGR and \BOOT\BCD.  The
113       latter task is most easily accomplished by running bcdboot.exe  from  a
114       live  Windows system such as Windows PE, but there are other options as
115       well.
116
117       Finally, note that this mode uses libntfs-3g  directly,  without  going
118       through  the ntfs-3g(8) driver.  Hence, there is no special support for
119       applying a WIM image to a directory on which  an  NTFS  filesystem  has
120       been  mounted using ntfs-3g(8); you have to unmount it first.  There is
121       also no support for applying a WIM image to some  subdirectory  of  the
122       NTFS volume; you can only apply to the root directory.
123

DIRECTORY EXTRACTION (WINDOWS)

125       On  Windows,  wimapply  (and wimextract) natively support NTFS and Win‐
126       dows-specific metadata.  For best results, the target directory  should
127       be  located on an NTFS volume and the program should be run with Admin‐
128       istrator privileges; however, non-NTFS filesystems and running  without
129       Administrator privileges are also supported, subject to limitations.
130
131       On Windows, wimapply tries to extract as much data and metadata as pos‐
132       sible, including:
133
134       ·   All data streams of all files.  This includes the default file con‐
135           tents,  as  well  as  named data streams if supported by the target
136           volume.
137
138       ·   Reparse points, including  symbolic  links,  junction  points,  and
139           other reparse points, if supported by the target volume.  Restoring
140           symlinks requires Administrator privileges.  Also see  --rpfix  and
141           --norpfix  for details on how absolute symbolic links and junctions
142           are extracted.
143
144       ·   File and directory creation, access, and  modification  timestamps,
145           to the highest resolution supported by the target volume.
146
147       ·   Security  descriptors, if supported by the filesystem and --no-acls
148           is not specified.  Note that this, in general, requires Administra‐
149           tor privileges, and may be only partially successful if the program
150           is run without Administrator privileges (see --strict-acls).
151
152       ·   File attribute  flags,  including  hidden,  compressed,  encrypted,
153           sparse, etc, when supported by the filesystem.
154
155       ·   Short filenames (also known as 8.3 names or DOS names).
156
157       ·   Hard links, if supported by the target filesystem.
158
159       ·   Object IDs, if supported by the target filesystem.
160
161       ·   Extended attributes (EAs), if supported by the target filesystem.
162
163       Additional notes about extracting files on Windows:
164
165       ·   wimapply  will  issue warnings if unable to extract the exact meta‐
166           data and data of the WIM image due to  limitations  of  the  target
167           filesystem.
168
169       ·   Since  encrypted  files  (with  FILE_ATTRIBUTE_ENCRYPTED)  are  not
170           stored in plaintext in  the  WIM  image,  wimapply  cannot  restore
171           encrypted  files  to filesystems not supporting encryption.  There‐
172           fore, on such filesystems, encrypted files will not  be  extracted.
173           Furthermore,  even  if encrypted files are restored to a filesystem
174           that supports encryption, they will  only  be  decryptable  if  the
175           decryption key is available.
176
177       ·   Files  with names that cannot be represented on Windows will not be
178           extracted by default; see --include-invalid-names.
179
180       ·   Files with full paths over 260 characters (the so-called  MAX_PATH)
181           will  be extracted, but beware that such files will be inaccessible
182           to most Windows software and may not be able to be deleted easily.
183
184       ·   On Windows, unless the --no-acls option is specified,  wimlib  will
185           attempt  to restore files' security descriptors exactly as they are
186           provided in the WIM image.  Beware that typical  Windows  installa‐
187           tions  contain  files  whose  security descriptors do not allow the
188           Administrator to delete them.  Therefore, such files  will  not  be
189           able  to  be deleted, or in some cases even read, after extracting,
190           unless processed with a specialized program that knows  to  acquire
191           the  SE_RESTORE_NAME  and/or  SE_BACKUP_NAME privileges which allow
192           overriding access control lists.  This is  not  a  bug  in  wimlib,
193           which  works  as  designed  to  correctly restore the data that was
194           archived, but rather a problem with the access rights Windows  uses
195           on  certain  files.   But  if you just want the file data and don't
196           care about security descriptors, use --no-acls  to  skip  restoring
197           all security descriptors.
198
199       ·   A  similar  caveat  to the above applies to file attributes such as
200           Readonly, Hidden, and System.  By design, on  Windows  wimlib  will
201           restore  such  file attributes; therefore, extracted files may have
202           those attributes.  If this is not what  you  want,  use  the  --no-
203           attributes option.
204

SPLIT WIMS

206       You may use wimapply to apply images from a split WIM, or wimextract to
207       extract files from a split WIM.  The WIMFILE argument must specify  the
208       first  part  of  the split WIM, while the additional parts of the split
209       WIM must be specified in one or more --ref="GLOB" options.  Since glob‐
210       bing is built into the --ref option, typically only one --ref option is
211       necessary.  For example, the names for the split WIM parts  usually  go
212       something like:
213
214              mywim.swm
215              mywim2.swm
216              mywim3.swm
217              mywim4.swm
218              mywim5.swm
219
220       To apply the first image of this split WIM to the directory "dir", run:
221
222              wimapply mywim.swm 1 dir --ref="mywim*.swm"
223

PIPABLE WIMS

225       wimapply  also supports applying a WIM from a nonseekable file, such as
226       a pipe, provided that the  WIM  was  captured  in  the  wimlib-specific
227       pipable  format  using  --pipable (see wimcapture(1)).  To use standard
228       input as the WIM, specify "-" as WIMFILE.  A possible use of this  fea‐
229       ture  is  to  apply  a  WIM image being streamed from the network.  For
230       example, to apply the first image from a WIM file available on  a  HTTP
231       server to an NTFS volume on /dev/sda1, run something like:
232
233              wget -O - http://myserver/mywim.wim | wimapply - 1 /dev/sda1
234
235       Pipable  WIMs  may  also be split into multiple parts, just like normal
236       WIMs.  To apply a split pipable WIM from a pipe, the parts must be con‐
237       catenated  and  all  written  to the pipe.  The first part must be sent
238       first, but the remaining parts may be sent in any order.
239

OPTIONS

241       --check
242             Before applying the image, verify the integrity of WIMFILE if  it
243             has extra integrity information.
244
245       --ref="GLOB"
246             File  glob  of  additional  WIMs  or split WIM parts to reference
247             resources from.  See SPLIT_WIMS.  This option  can  be  specified
248             multiple  times.   Note:  GLOB  is listed in quotes because it is
249             interpreted by wimapply and may need  to  be  quoted  to  protect
250             against shell expansion.
251
252       --rpfix, --norpfix
253             Set  whether  to  fix targets of absolute symbolic links (reparse
254             points in Windows terminology) or not.  When  enabled  (--rpfix),
255             extracted  absolute  symbolic  links  that  are marked in the WIM
256             image as being fixed are assumed to have absolute  targets  rela‐
257             tive to the image root, and therefore wimapply prepends the abso‐
258             lute path to the extraction target directory  to  their  targets.
259             The  intention is that you can apply an image containing absolute
260             symbolic links and still have them be valid  after  it  has  been
261             applied to any location.
262
263             The  default  behavior  is  --rpfix if any images in WIMFILE have
264             been captured with reparse-point fixups done.  Otherwise,  it  is
265             --norpfix.
266
267             Reparse point fixups are never done in the NTFS volume extraction
268             mode on UNIX-like systems.
269
270       --unix-data
271             (UNIX-like systems only)  Restore UNIX-specific metadata and spe‐
272             cial  files that were captured by wimcapture with the --unix-data
273             option.  This includes: standard UNIX  file  permissions  (owner,
274             group,  and  mode);  device  nodes, named pipes, and sockets; and
275             extended attributes (Linux-only).
276
277       --no-acls
278             Do not restore security descriptors on extracted files and direc‐
279             tories.
280
281       --strict-acls
282             Fail  immediately  if the full security descriptor of any file or
283             directory cannot be set exactly as specified in the WIM file.  If
284             this  option  is not specified, when wimapply on Windows does not
285             have permission to set a  security  descriptor  on  an  extracted
286             file,  it falls back to setting it only partially (e.g. with SACL
287             omitted), and in the worst case omits it entirely.  However, this
288             should  only  be a problem when running wimapply without Adminis‐
289             trator rights.  Also, on UNIX-like systems, this flag can also be
290             combined  with --unix-data to cause wimapply to issue an error if
291             UNIX permissions are unable to be applied to an extracted file.
292
293       --no-attributes
294             Do not restore Windows file attributes such as readonly,  hidden,
295             etc.
296
297       --include-invalid-names
298             Extract  files  and  directories  with invalid names by replacing
299             characters and appending a  suffix  rather  than  ignoring  them.
300             Exactly  what  is considered an "invalid" name is platform-depen‐
301             dent.
302
303             On POSIX-compliant systems, filenames are case-sensitive and  may
304             contain  any  byte  except  '\0' and ´/', so on a POSIX-compliant
305             system this option will only have an effect in the unlikely  case
306             that  the WIM image for some reason has a filename containing one
307             of these characters.
308
309             On Windows, filenames  are  case-insensitive(*),  cannot  include
310             control  characters, and cannot include the characters '/', ´\0',
311             '\', ':', '*', '?', ´"', '<', '>', or '|'.  Ordinarily, files  in
312             WIM  images  should meet these conditions as well. However, it is
313             not guaranteed, and in particular a WIM image captured with  wim‐
314             capture on a POSIX-compliant system could contain such files.  By
315             default, invalid names will be ignored, and if there are multiple
316             names differing only in case, one will be chosen to extract arbi‐
317             trarily; however, with --include-invalid-names, all names will be
318             sanitized and extracted in some form.
319
320             (*) Unless the ObCaseInsensitive setting has been set to 0 in the
321             Windows registry, in which case certain software,  including  the
322             Windows  version of wimapply, will honor case-sensitive filenames
323             on NTFS and other compatible filesystems.
324
325       --wimboot
326             Windows only: Instead of extracting the files themselves, extract
327             "pointer  files"  back to the WIM archive(s).  This can result in
328             significant space savings.  However, it comes at  several  poten‐
329             tial  costs,  such as not being able to delete the WIM archive(s)
330             and possibly having slower access to files.  See Microsoft's doc‐
331             umentation for "WIMBoot" for more information.
332
333             If  it  exists,  the  [PrepopulateList] section of the file \Win‐
334             dows\System32\WimBootCompress.ini in the WIM image will be  read.
335             Files  matching any of these patterns will be extracted normally,
336             not as WIMBoot "pointer files".   This  is  helpful  for  certain
337             files that Windows needs to read early in the boot process.
338
339             This  option only works when the program is run as an Administra‐
340             tor and the target volume is NTFS or another filesystem that sup‐
341             ports reparse points.
342
343             In  addition,  this option works best when running on Windows 8.1
344             Update 1 or later, since that is the  first  version  of  Windows
345             that  contains  the  Windows  Overlay  Filesystem  filter  driver
346             ("WOF").  If the WOF driver is detected, wimlib will  create  the
347             WIMBoot "pointer files" using documented ioctls provided by WOF.
348
349             Otherwise,  if the WOF driver is not detected, wimlib will create
350             the reparse points and edit the  file  "\System  Volume  Informa‐
351             tion\WimOverlay.dat"  on  the  target  volume  manually.  This is
352             potentially subject to problems, since although the code works in
353             certain  tested  cases, neither of these data formats is actually
354             documented by Microsoft.  Before overwriting  this  file,  wimlib
355             will  save  the  previous  version  in  "\System  Volume Informa‐
356             tion\WimOverlay.wimlib_backup",  which  you   potentially   could
357             restore if you needed to.
358
359             You  actually can still do a --wimboot extraction even if the WIM
360             image is not marked as "WIMBoot-compatible".  This option  causes
361             the  extracted  files to be set as "externally backed" by the WIM
362             file.  Microsoft's driver which implements this  "external  back‐
363             ing"  functionality  seemingly does not care whether the image(s)
364             in the WIM are really marked as  WIMBoot-compatible.   Therefore,
365             the "WIMBoot-compatible" tag (<WIMBOOT> in the XML data) seems to
366             be a marker for intent only.  In addition, the  Microsoft  driver
367             can  externally  back files from WIM files that use XPRESS chunks
368             of size 8192, 16384, and 32768, or LZX chunks of size  32768,  in
369             addition  to the default XPRESS chunks of size 4096 that are cre‐
370             ated when wimcapture is run with the --wimboot option.
371
372       --compact=FORMAT
373             Windows-only: compress the extracted files using System  Compres‐
374             sion,  when  possible.   This  only works on either Windows 10 or
375             later, or on an older Windows  to  which  Microsoft's  wofadk.sys
376             driver has been added.  Several different compression formats may
377             be used with System Compression, and one  must  be  specified  as
378             FORMAT.  The choices are: xpress4k, xpress8k, xpress16k, and lzx.
379
380             Exclusions  are  handled  in  the  same way as with the --wimboot
381             option.  That is: if it exists, the [PrepopulateList] section  of
382             the  file  \Windows\System32\WimBootCompress.ini in the WIM image
383             will be read, and files matching any of the patterns in this sec‐
384             tion will not be compressed.  In addition, wimlib has a hardcoded
385             list of files for which it knows, for compatibility with the Win‐
386             dows bootloader, to override the requested compression format.
387

NOTES

389       Data  integrity:  WIM  files include checksums of file data.  To detect
390       accidental  (non-malicious)  data  corruption,  wimlib  calculates  the
391       checksum  of  every file it extracts and issues an error if it does not
392       have the expected value.  (This default behavior  seems  equivalent  to
393       the  /verify option of ImageX.)  In addition, a WIM file can include an
394       integrity table (extra checksums) over the raw data of the  entire  WIM
395       file.   For performance reasons wimlib does not check the integrity ta‐
396       ble by default, but the --check option can be passed to make it do so.
397
398       ESD files: wimlib can extract  files  from  solid-compressed  WIMs,  or
399       "ESD"  (.esd)  files, just like from normal WIM (.wim) files.  However,
400       Microsoft sometimes distributes ESD files with encrypted segments; wim‐
401       lib cannot extract such files until they are first decrypted.
402
403       Security:  wimlib  has been carefully written to validate all input and
404       is believed to be secure against some  types  of  attacks  which  often
405       plague  other file archiving programs, e.g. directory traversal attacks
406       (which, as it happens, Microsoft's  WIM  software  is  vulnerable  to).
407       Important  parts of wimlib, e.g. the decompressors, have also been fuzz
408       tested.  However, wimlib is not currently designed to  protect  against
409       some  types of denial-of-service (DOS) attacks, e.g.  memory exhaustion
410       or "zip bombs".
411

EXAMPLES

413       Extract the first image from the Windows PE WIM on the Windows  instal‐
414       lation media to the directory "boot":
415
416              wimapply /mnt/windows/sources/boot.wim 1 boot
417
418       On  Windows,  apply  an  image  of  an  entire volume, for example from
419       "install.wim" which can be found on the Windows installation media:
420
421              wimapply install.wim 1 E:\
422
423       Same as above, but running on a UNIX-like system where the  correspond‐
424       ing partition is /dev/sda2:
425
426              wimapply install.wim 1 /dev/sda2
427
428       Note that before running either of the above commands, an NTFS filesys‐
429       tem may need to be created on the  partition,  for  example  with  for‐
430       mat.exe  on Windows or mkntfs(8) on UNIX-like systems.  For example, on
431       UNIX you might run:
432
433              mkntfs /dev/sda2 && wimapply install.wim 1 /dev/sda2
434
435       (Of course don't do that if you don't want to destroy all existing data
436       on the partition!)
437
438       See  SPLIT  WIMS  and  PIPABLE  WIMS for examples of applying split and
439       pipable WIMs, respectively.
440

SEE ALSO

442       wimlib-imagex(1) wimcapture(1) wimextract(1) wiminfo(1)
443
444
445
446wimlib 1.13.3                    October 2020                      WIMAPPLY(1)
Impressum