1WIMLIB-IMAGEX(1) User Commands WIMLIB-IMAGEX(1)
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6 wimlib-imagex - Extract, create, modify, or mount a WIM archive
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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...)
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27 wimlib-imagex deals with archive files in the Windows Imaging (WIM)
28 format. Its interface is similar to Microsoft's ImageX, but wimlib-im‐
29 agex is cross-platform and has useful improvements and extensions.
30 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, al‐
35 though for command-line use wimlib-imagex already provides access to
36 most of wimlib's functionality.
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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 us‐
46 ing one of several compression algorithms.
47 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.
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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-im‐
59 agex command can be found in the appropriate manual page.
60 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
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 • Display information about a WIM file (wiminfo)
71 • List the files in a WIM image (wimdir)
73 • Extract, or "apply", a full WIM image (wimapply)
75 • Extract files or directories from a WIM image (wimextract)
77 • Capture a WIM image and save it to a new WIM file (wimcapture)
79 • Capture a WIM image and append it to an existing WIM file (wimap‐
81 pend)
82 • Modify a WIM image by adding, deleting, or renaming files (wimup‐
84 date)
85 • (Linux only) Mount a WIM image read-only (wimmount)
87 • (Linux only) Mount a WIM image read-write (wimmountrw)
89 • Delete an image from a WIM file (wimdelete)
91 • Export image(s) from a WIM file (wimexport)
93 • Change the name or description of a WIM image (wiminfo)
95 • Change the bootable image index of a WIM file (wiminfo)
97 • Rebuild, and optionally recompress, a WIM file (wimoptimize)
99 • Split a WIM file into multiple parts (wimsplit)
101 • Join a split WIM (wimjoin)
103 • Verify the validity and integrity of a WIM file (wimverify)
105
107 This section presents some of the interesting features of wimlib-imagex
108 in more detail.
109 • 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 • 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.
120 • 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.
124 • Multithreaded compression. By default, wimlib's data compression
126 is multithreaded and will use all available processors.
127 • 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.
133 • 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.)
138 • On Linux, support for mounting WIM images with FUSE (Filesystem in
140 UserSpacE), both readonly and read-write.
141 • 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 • 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 • "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.
156 • 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 it‐
160 self 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 • Fast incremental backups. Because WIM archives use content-ad‐
165 dressible file data, the contents of files are automatically dedu‐
166 plicated. In addition, using the --update-of option of wimcapture
167 or wimappend, you can optimize an image capture so that files that
168 are unmodified based on timestamps are not even read from disk.
169 • Windows-specific image metadata support. When capturing an image
171 of a Windows operating system, wimlib will automatically populate
172 XML metadata fields such as the Windows OS version details by scan‐
173 ning well-known system files.
174 • WIMBoot support. On Windows 8.1 and later, files can be "exter‐
176 nally backed" by a WIM archive with the help of Microsoft's Windows
177 Overlay Filesystem (WOF) filter driver. With the --wimboot option,
178 wimapply will extract "pointer files" to the WIM archive rather
179 than the files themselves.
180 • VSS snapshot support. On Windows, wimcapture or wimappend with the
182 --snapshot option will automatically create a temporary VSS snap‐
183 shot and capture the image from it. This can be used to image a
184 "live" Windows system.
185 • Long path support on Windows. wimlib-imagex can capture and apply
187 files with paths exceeding the MAX_PATH (260 character) limitation
188 of the Win32 subsystem.
189 • Non-Administrator support on Windows. You can run wimlib-imagex
191 without Administrator rights, subject to some limitations.
192
194 The following options work for all wimlib-imagex commands:
195 --help
197 Display the help, then exit.
198 --version
200 Display the version and legal information, then exit.
201 --quiet
203 Suppress informational and progress messages.
204
206 By default, the case sensitivity of wimlib-imagex differs somewhat be‐
207 tween UNIX-like systems and Windows. WIM images may (but usually do
208 not) have multiple files with the same case-insensitive name. Inter‐
209 nally, wimlib stores filenames as case-sensitive, but on Windows paths
210 actually provided by the user for use in a WIM image (e.g. for extract‐
211 ing, adding, renaming, or deleting files) will by default be treated as
212 case-insensitive in order to get the "expected" behavior. This differs
213 from the default behavior on UNIX-like systems, where such paths will
214 be treated as case-sensitive.
215 Note that with case insensitivity, a path component may in general be
217 ambiguous due to multiple files or directories having the same case-in‐
218 sensitive name. In such cases, if there is a file or directory with an
219 exactly matching name, it is chosen; otherwise, one of the case-insen‐
220 sitively matching file or directories is chosen arbitrarily.
221 The default case sensitivity of wimlib-imagex can be overridden by ex‐
223 plicitly setting the environmental variable WIMLIB_IMAGEX_IGNORE_CASE
224 to 1, in which case such paths will be treated case insensitively, or
225 0, in which such paths will be treated case sensitively.
226 Regardless of these settings, options and non-path arguments must be
228 specified in lower case.
229
231 wimlib-imagex may be redistributed and/or modified under the terms of
232 the GNU General Public License; either version 3 of the License, or (at
233 your option) any later version. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent
234 permitted by law.
235
237 Report bugs to https://wimlib.net/forums/. Feedback and suggestions
238 are also welcome.
239
241 wimappend(1), wimapply(1), wimcapture(1), wimdelete(1), wimdir(1), wim‐
242 export(1), wimextract(1), wiminfo(1), wimjoin(1), wimmount(1), wimmoun‐
243 trw(1), wimoptimize(1), wimsplit(1), wimunmount(1), wimupdate(1),
244 wimverify(1),
245wimlib 1.14.3 September 2023 WIMLIB-IMAGEX(1)