1WIMUPDATE(1) User Commands WIMUPDATE(1)
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6 wimupdate - Update a WIM image
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9 wimupdate WIMFILE [IMAGE] [OPTION...] [< CMDFILE]
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12 wimupdate, or equivalently wimlib-imagex update, modifies the specified
13 IMAGE in the Windows Imaging (WIM) archive WIMFILE by adding, deleting,
14 or renaming files or directories in it.
15 IMAGE specifies the image in WIMFILE to update. It may be the 1-based
17 index of an image or the name of an image. It may be omitted if WIM‐
18 FILE contains only one image. You can use wiminfo(1) to list the im‐
19 ages contained in WIMFILE.
20 The modifications to perform on the WIM image are specified as a se‐
22 quence of commands, one per line, read in a text file from standard in‐
23 put. It is recommended that standard input be redirected from a file
24 (CMDFILE), as shown above, rather than typing in commands interac‐
25 tively. Alternatively, to specify a command directly on the command
26 line, see the --command option.
27
29 This section documents the commands that may appear in the CMDFILE de‐
30 scribed above.
31 add [OPTION...] SOURCE DESTINATION
33 Add a file or directory tree to the WIM image. SOURCE must specify the
34 path to a file or directory on your filesystem. DESTINATION must spec‐
35 ify the path inside the WIM image at which to add the file or directory
36 tree.
37 If DESTINATION names an existing directory in the WIM image, then
39 SOURCE must also name a directory. This causes the contents of the
40 SOURCE directory to be added to the DESTINATION directory.
41 If DESTINATION names an existing nondirectory file in the WIM image,
43 then SOURCE must also name a nondirectory file. By default, this
44 causes the DESTINATION file to be replaced with the SOURCE file. Or,
45 with --no-replace specified, this generates an error.
46 If DESTINATION does not exist in the WIM image, then any prerequisite
48 directories are created as needed to add the SOURCE at that location.
49 The add command supports a subset of the options accepted by wimcap‐
51 ture; namely, --dereference, --unix-data, --no-acls, and --strict-acls.
52 See wimcapture(1) for explanations of these options.
53 In addition, the add command supports the --no-replace option, which
55 causes the add command to refuse to overwrite existing nondirectory
56 files in the WIM image.
57 delete [OPTION...] PATH
59 Delete a file or directory tree from the WIM image. PATH must specify
60 the path inside the WIM image of the file or directory tree to delete.
61 The available options for the delete command are:
63 --force
65 Do not issue an error if the path to delete does not exist.
66 --recursive
68 Delete the file or directory tree recursively; if not specified,
69 an error is issued if the path to delete is a directory.
70 rename OLD_PATH NEW_PATH
72 Rename a file or directory tree inside the WIM image. OLD_PATH must
73 specify the old path of the file or directory tree inside the WIM im‐
74 age, and NEW_PATH must specify the new path for the file or directory
75 tree. This command follows the semantics of the POSIX rename (3) func‐
76 tion; in particular, a pre-existing file at NEW_PATH will be deleted if
77 present, except in certain cases such as attempting to rename a direc‐
78 tory to a non-directory, which is not allowed.
79 There are no options available for the rename command.
81
83 The following options are accepted on the command line by wimupdate it‐
84 self:
85 --dereference
87 Use --dereference for all add commands.
88 --unix-data
90 Use --unix-data for all add commands.
91 --no-acls
93 Use --no-acls for all add commands.
94 --strict-acls
96 Use --strict-acls for all add commands.
97 --no-replace
99 Use --no-replace for all add commands.
100 --config=FILE
102 Set the capture configuration file for all add commands. See the
103 description of this option to wimcapture(1).
104 --force
106 Use --force for all delete commands.
107 --recursive
109 Use --recursive for all delete commands.
110 --check
112 Before updating the WIM, verify its integrity if it contains ex‐
113 tra integrity information. Also include extra integrity informa‐
114 tion in the updated WIM even if it was not present before.
115 --include-integrity
117 Include extra integrity information in the updated WIM, i.e. like
118 --check but don't also verify the WIM beforehand.
119 --threads=NUM_THREADS
121 Number of threads to use for compressing newly added files. De‐
122 fault: autodetect (number of processors).
123 --rebuild
125 Rebuild the entire WIM rather than appending the updated data to
126 the end of it. Rebuilding the WIM is slower, but will save a
127 little bit of space that would otherwise be left as a hole in the
128 WIM file.
129 See wimoptimize(1) for a more customizable way of rebuilding (and
131 optionally recompressing) a WIM file. If running wimoptimize af‐
132 ter wimupdate, there is no need to specify --rebuild to wimup‐
133 date.
134 --command=STRING
136 Instead of reading update commands from standard input, read a
137 single update command directly from the string STRING specified
138 on the command line. This option cannot be provided more than
139 one time and cannot be used to specify more than one update com‐
140 mand. Note that the STRING, as well as any paths containing spa‐
141 ces within the STRING must be appropriately quoted. If running
142 from cmd.exe on Windows, you should use double quotes for the
143 outer quotes and single quotes for the inner quotes. Example:
144 wimupdate boot.wim 1 --command="add 'C:\My Dir' '\My Dir'"
146 This option is provided for convenience only. Do not execute
148 wimupdate multiple consecutive times, each time passing the
149 --command option! This is inefficient. Instead, generate an up‐
150 date command file and provide it (on standard input) to a single
151 invocation of wimupdate, as explained in this document.
152 --wimboot-config=FILE
154 If this option is specified, no commands shall be read from stan‐
155 dard input, and instead the following command shall be executed:
156 add FILE /Windows/System32/WimBootCompress.ini
158 This sets FILE as the WIMBoot configuration file for the image.
160 The [PrepopulateList] section of this file specifies path globs
161 that shall not be extracted as WIMBoot pointer files (perhaps due
162 to being needed early in the boot process). See the documenta‐
163 tion for the --wimboot option of wimapply(1) for more informa‐
164 tion.
165 --unsafe-compact
167 Compact the WIM archive in-place and append any new data, elimi‐
168 nating "holes". This is efficient, but in general this option
169 should not be used because a failed or interrupted compaction
170 will corrupt the WIM archive. For more information, see the doc‐
171 umentation for this option in wimoptimize(1).
172
174 wimupdate can be viewed as redundant with wimmountrw, since a WIM image
175 can also be updated by mounting it read-write. However, wimupdate
176 works on all platforms including Windows, whereas wimmountrw only works
177 on Linux.
178 Symbolic links inside a WIM image are not dereferenced when being in‐
180 terpreted. So, for example, if you have a WIM image that contains a
181 symbolic link "/Documents and Settings" -> "/Users" where "/Users" is a
182 directory, then a subdirectory named "Public" in this directory must be
183 specified as "/Users/Public" rather than "/Documents and Settings/Pub‐
184 lic".
185 All paths to files or directories within the WIM image must be speci‐
187 fied relative to the root of the image. However, the leading slash is
188 optional, and both forward slashes and backslashes are accepted. In
189 addition, on Windows, the paths are by default treated case-insensi‐
190 tively, while on UNIX-like systems, the paths are by default treated
191 case-sensitively. The default case sensitivity may be changed by set‐
192 ting the WIMLIB_IMAGEX_IGNORE_CASE environmental variable to 0 or 1.
193 The command file (CMDFILE) is parsed by wimupdate itself and not by the
195 system shell. Therefore, its syntax is limited. However, comment
196 lines beginning with '#' are allowed, and it is also possible to quote
197 arguments with whitespace inside them.
198 On UNIX-like systems, you cannot use wimupdate to add files to an image
200 directly from an NTFS volume using libntfs-3g, even though wimcapture
201 supports capturing a full image this way.
202 Except when using --unsafe-compact, it is safe to abort a wimupdate
204 command partway through; however, after doing this, it is recommended
205 to run wimoptimize to remove any data that was appended to the physical
206 WIM file but not yet incorporated into the structure of the WIM, unless
207 --rebuild was specified, in which case you should delete the temporary
208 file left over.
209
211 All the examples below show the update command file to be created as
212 well as the wimupdate command to run to perform the updates.
213 Delete two files from a WIM image:
215 update_commands.txt:
217 delete /setup.exe
219 delete /sources/setup.exe
220 $ wimupdate boot.wim 2 < update_commands.txt
222 Add some files and directories to a WIM image. Note that the first
224 path of each add command specifies the files to add, while the second
225 path of each add command specify the locations at which to add them in‐
226 side the WIM image:
227 update_commands.txt:
229 add somedir /dir
231 add somefile /dir/file
232 $ wimupdate boot.wim 2 < update_commands.txt
234 Rename a file inside a WIM image.
236 update_commands.txt:
238 rename /dir_in_wim/oldfile.txt /dir_in_wim/newfile.txt
240 $ wimupdate boot.wim 2 < update_commands.txt
242 Using additional features, such as comments, options, and overlays, and
244 including extra integrity information in the updated WIM:
245 update_commands.txt:
247 #
249 # This file specifies some changes to make to a WIM image.
250 #
251 # Add a new directory containing files I want in the image.
253 # The quotes are necessary because the directory name
254 # contains a space.
255 add "My Directory" "/My Directory"
256 # Add the contents of "Another Directory" to the
258 # "/My Directory" we just created in the WIM image. Since
259 # the destination path already exists, this performs an
260 # overlay.
261 add "Another Directory" "/My Directory"
262 # Rename some file for some reason.
264 rename /dir_in_wim/oldfile.txt /dir_in_wim/newfile.txt
265 # Delete an unwanted directory.
267 delete --recursive /Users/Me/Documents/Junk
268 $ wimupdate boot.wim 2 --check < update_commands.txt
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272 wimlib-imagex(1) wimcapture(1) wiminfo(1) wimmountrw(1) wimoptimize(1)
273wimlib 1.13.5 December 2021 WIMUPDATE(1)