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

6       wimlib-imagex - Extract, create, modify, or mount a WIM archive
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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-im‐
29       agex is cross-platform and has useful improvements and extensions.
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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,  al‐
35       though  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 us‐
46       ing one of several compression algorithms.
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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.
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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-im‐
59       agex command can be found in the appropriate manual page.
60
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)
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72       •   List the files in a WIM image (wimdir)
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74       •   Extract, or "apply", a full WIM image (wimapply)
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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)
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80       •   Capture  a  WIM image and append it to an existing WIM file (wimap‐
81           pend)
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83       •   Modify a WIM image by adding, deleting, or renaming  files  (wimup‐
84           date)
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86       •   (Linux only) Mount a WIM image read-only (wimmount)
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88       •   (Linux only) Mount a WIM image read-write (wimmountrw)
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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)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 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.
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164       •   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.
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170       •   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.
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175       •   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.
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181       •   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.
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186       •   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.
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190       •   Non-Administrator support on Windows.  You  can  run  wimlib-imagex
191           without Administrator rights, subject to some limitations.
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COMMON OPTIONS

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

CASE SENSITIVITY

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
216       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.
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222       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.
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227       Regardless of these settings, options and non-path  arguments  must  be
228       specified in lower case.
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LICENSE

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

REPORTING BUGS

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

SEE ALSO

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),
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248wimlib 1.14.3                   September 2023                WIMLIB-IMAGEX(1)
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