{"id":20194539,"url":"https://github.com/chris1111/wimlib-imagex-package","last_synced_at":"2025-04-10T10:13:03.310Z","repository":{"id":107129213,"uuid":"416779229","full_name":"chris1111/Wimlib-Imagex-Package","owner":"chris1111","description":"wimlib is a C library for creating, modifying, extracting, and mounting files in the Windows Imaging Format (WIM files).","archived":false,"fork":false,"pushed_at":"2024-11-12T02:32:58.000Z","size":122543,"stargazers_count":37,"open_issues_count":0,"forks_count":2,"subscribers_count":2,"default_branch":"main","last_synced_at":"2025-03-24T09:04:38.361Z","etag":null,"topics":["macos","productbuild","wimlib","wimlib-imagex","windows","windows11-recreation"],"latest_commit_sha":null,"homepage":"https://chris1111.github.io/Wimlib-Imagex-Package/","language":"C","has_issues":true,"has_wiki":null,"has_pages":null,"mirror_url":null,"source_name":null,"license":"other","status":null,"scm":"git","pull_requests_enabled":true,"icon_url":"https://github.com/chris1111.png","metadata":{"files":{"readme":"README","changelog":"NEWS.md","contributing":null,"funding":null,"license":"COPYING","code_of_conduct":null,"threat_model":null,"audit":null,"citation":null,"codeowners":null,"security":null,"support":null,"governance":null,"roadmap":null,"authors":null,"dei":null,"publiccode":null,"codemeta":null}},"created_at":"2021-10-13T14:34:20.000Z","updated_at":"2025-01-24T16:09:34.000Z","dependencies_parsed_at":null,"dependency_job_id":"a58066d4-0ae1-4b50-a281-adb04b8abe72","html_url":"https://github.com/chris1111/Wimlib-Imagex-Package","commit_stats":null,"previous_names":[],"tags_count":2,"template":false,"template_full_name":null,"repository_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/chris1111%2FWimlib-Imagex-Package","tags_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/chris1111%2FWimlib-Imagex-Package/tags","releases_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/chris1111%2FWimlib-Imagex-Package/releases","manifests_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/chris1111%2FWimlib-Imagex-Package/manifests","owner_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners/chris1111","download_url":"https://codeload.github.com/chris1111/Wimlib-Imagex-Package/tar.gz/refs/heads/main","host":{"name":"GitHub","url":"https://github.com","kind":"github","repositories_count":248198888,"owners_count":21063628,"icon_url":"https://github.com/github.png","version":null,"created_at":"2022-05-30T11:31:42.601Z","updated_at":"2022-07-04T15:15:14.044Z","host_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub","repositories_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories","repository_names_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repository_names","owners_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners"}},"keywords":["macos","productbuild","wimlib","wimlib-imagex","windows","windows11-recreation"],"created_at":"2024-11-14T04:12:50.113Z","updated_at":"2025-04-10T10:13:03.284Z","avatar_url":"https://github.com/chris1111.png","language":"C","funding_links":[],"categories":[],"sub_categories":[],"readme":"# Introduction\n\nThis is wimlib version 1.14.4 (February 2024).  wimlib is a C library for\ncreating, modifying, extracting, and mounting files in the Windows Imaging\nFormat (WIM files).  wimlib and its command-line frontend `wimlib-imagex`\nprovide a free and cross-platform alternative to Microsoft's WIMGAPI, ImageX,\nand DISM.\n\nFor the release notes, see the [NEWS file](NEWS.md).\n\n# Table of Contents\n\n- [Installation](#installation)\n  - [Windows](#windows)\n  - [UNIX-like systems](#unix-like-systems)\n    - [Installing distro package](#installing-distro-package)\n    - [Building from source](#building-from-source)\n- [WIM files](#wim-files)\n- [ImageX implementation](#imagex-implementation)\n- [Compression](#compression)\n- [NTFS support](#ntfs-support)\n- [Windows PE](#windows-pe)\n- [Portability](#portability)\n- [References](#references)\n- [History](#history)\n- [Notices](#notices)\n\n# Installation\n\n## Windows\n\nTo install wimlib and `wimlib-imagex` on Windows, just download and extract the\nZIP file containing the latest binaries.  All official releases are available\nfrom [wimlib.net](https://wimlib.net).\n\nFor more details, including directions for how to build from source on Windows\nif desired, see [README.WINDOWS.md](README.WINDOWS.md).\n\n## UNIX-like systems\n\n### Installing distro package\n\nTo install wimlib and `wimlib-imagex` on UNIX-like systems, first consider just\ninstalling the package provided by your operating system, if there is one.\n\nFor example, on Ubuntu and other Debian based systems, run:\n\n    sudo apt install wimtools\n\nOn Fedora and other Red Hat based systems, run:\n\n    sudo dnf install wimlib-utils\n\nOn Arch Linux, run:\n\n    sudo pacman -S wimlib\n\n### Building from source\n\nTo build from source instead, first install the development files for libfuse3\nand libntfs-3g, if they're available for your operating system.  For example, on\nUbuntu, run:\n\n    sudo apt install libfuse3-dev ntfs-3g-dev\n\nThen, if you're building from the git repository instead of from a release\ntarball, install additional build dependencies and run the bootstrap script:\n\n    sudo apt install autoconf automake libtool pkgconf\n    ./bootstrap\n\nFinally, configure, build, and install the software:\n\n    ./configure\n    make\n    sudo make install\n\nIn addition to the standard options, the configure script accepts the following\noptions:\n\n- `--without-fuse`:  Disables support for mounting WIM images.  The `wimmount`,\n  `wimmountrw`, and `wimunmount` commands won't work.  This removes the\n  dependency on libfuse3.\n\n- `--without-ntfs-3g`:  Disables support for capturing or applying WIM images\n  directly from/to NTFS volumes.  This removes the dependency on libntfs-3g.\n\nThe `mkwinpeimg` shell script also has some optional dependencies that you can\nchoose to install:\n\n- `cdrkit` (for making ISO filesystems)\n- `mtools` (for making disk images)\n- `syslinux` (for making disk images)\n- `cabextract` (for extracting files from the Windows Automated Installation Kit)\n\nMounting WIM images also requires the FUSE kernel module.  When you try to mount\na WIM image, the FUSE kernel module should be automatically loaded.  Mounting\nWIM images is only supported on Linux.\n\n# WIM files\n\nA Windows Imaging (WIM) file is an archive designed primarily for archiving\nWindows filesystems.  However, it can be used on other platforms as well, with\nsome limitations.  Like some other archive formats such as ZIP, files in WIM\narchives may be compressed.  WIM archives support multiple compression formats,\nincluding LZX, XPRESS, and LZMS.  All these formats are supported by wimlib.\n\nA WIM archive contains one or more \"images\", each of which is a logically\nindependent directory tree.  Each image has a 1-based index and usually a name.\n\nWIM archives provide data deduplication at the level of full file contents.  In\nother words, each unique \"file contents\" is only stored once in the archive,\nregardless of how many files have that contents across all images.\n\nA WIM archive may be either stand-alone or split into multiple parts.\n\nAn update of the WIM format --- first added by Microsoft for Windows 8 ---\nsupports solid-mode compression.  This refers to files being compressed together\n(e.g. as in a .tar.xz or .7z archive) rather than separately (e.g. as in a .zip\narchive).  This usually produces a much better compression ratio.  Solid\narchives are sometimes called \"ESD files\" by Microsoft and may have the \".esd\"\nfile extension rather than \".wim\".  They are supported in wimlib since v1.6.0.\n\n# ImageX implementation\n\nwimlib itself is a C library, and it provides a [documented public\nAPI](https://wimlib.net/apidoc) for other programs to use.  However, it is also\ndistributed with a command-line program called `wimlib-imagex` that uses this\nlibrary to implement an imaging tool similar to Microsoft's `ImageX`.\n`wimlib-imagex` supports almost all the capabilities of Microsoft's `ImageX` as\nwell as additional capabilities.  `wimlib-imagex` works on both UNIX-like\nsystems and Windows, although some features differ between the platforms.\n\nRun `wimlib-imagex` with no arguments to see an overview of the available\ncommands and their syntax.  Note that the commands have both long and short\nforms, e.g. `wimlib-imagex apply` is equivalent to `wimapply`.  For additional\ndocumentation:\n\n- If you have installed `wimlib-imagex` on a UNIX-like system, you will find\n  further documentation in the man pages; run `man wimlib-imagex` to get\n  started.\n\n- If you have downloaded the Windows binary distribution, you will find the\n  documentation for `wimlib-imagex` in PDF format in the `doc` directory.  Note\n  that although the documentation is written in the style of UNIX manual pages,\n  it does document Windows-specific behavior when relevant.\n\n# Compression\n\nwimlib (and `wimlib-imagex`) can create XPRESS, LZX, and LZMS compressed WIM\narchives.  wimlib's compression codecs usually outperform and outcompress their\nclosed-source Microsoft equivalents.  Multiple compression levels and chunk\nsizes as well as solid mode compression are supported.  Compression is\nmultithreaded by default.  Detailed benchmark results and descriptions of the\nalgorithms used can be found at\n[wimlib.net](https://wimlib.net/compression.html).\n\n# NTFS support\n\nWIM images may contain data, such as named data streams and\ncompression/encryption flags, that are best represented on the NTFS filesystem\nused on Windows.  Also, WIM images may contain security descriptors which are\nspecific to Windows and cannot be represented on other operating systems.\nwimlib handles this NTFS-specific or Windows-specific data in a\nplatform-dependent way:\n\n- In the Windows version of wimlib and `wimlib-imagex`, NTFS-specific and\n  Windows-specific data are supported natively.\n\n- In the UNIX version of wimlib and `wimlib-imagex`, NTFS-specific and\n  Windows-specific data are ordinarily ignored; however, there is also special\n  support for capturing and extracting images directly to/from unmounted NTFS\n  volumes.  This was made possible with the help of libntfs-3g from the NTFS-3G\n  project.\n\nFor both platforms the code for NTFS capture and extraction is complete enough\nthat it is possible to apply an image from the `install.wim` contained in recent\nWindows installation media (Vista or later) directly to an NTFS filesystem, and\nthen boot Windows from it after preparing the Boot Configuration Data.  In\naddition, a Windows installation can be captured (or backed up) into a WIM file,\nand then re-applied later.\n\n# Windows PE\n\nwimlib can also be used to create customized images of Windows PE on either\nUNIX-like systems or Windows.  Windows PE (Preinstallation Environment) is a\nlightweight version of Windows that runs entirely from memory and can be used to\nperform maintenance or to install Windows.  It is the operating system that runs\nwhen you boot from the Windows installation media.\n\nA copy of Windows PE can be found on the installation media for Windows (Vista\nor later) as the file `sources/boot.wim`, or in the Windows Automated\nInstallation Kit (WAIK), which is free to download from Microsoft.\n\nA shell script `mkwinpeimg` is provided with wimlib on UNIX-like systems to\nsimplify the process of creating and customizing a bootable Windows PE image,\nsourcing the needed files from the Windows installation media or from the WAIK.\n\n# Portability\n\nwimlib works on both UNIX-like systems (Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, etc.) and\nWindows (Vista and later).\n\nAs much code as possible is shared among all supported platforms, but there\nnecessarily are some differences in what features are supported on each platform\nand how they are implemented.  Most notable is that file tree scanning and\nextraction are implemented separately for Windows, UNIX, and UNIX (NTFS-3G\nmode), to ensure a fast and feature-rich implementation of each platform/mode.\n\nwimlib is mainly used on x86 and x86\\_64 CPUs, but it should also work on a\nnumber of other GCC-supported 32-bit or 64-bit architectures.  It has been\ntested on the ARM and MIPS architectures.\n\nCurrently, gcc and clang are the only supported compilers.  A few nonstandard\nextensions are used in the code.\n\n# References\n\nThe WIM file format is partially specified in a document that can be found in\nthe Microsoft Download Center.  However, this document really only provides an\noverview of the format and is not a formal specification.  It also does not\ncover later extensions of the format, such as solid resources.\n\nWith regards to the supported compression formats:\n\n- Microsoft has official documentation for XPRESS that is of reasonable quality.\n- Microsoft has official documentation for LZX, but in two different documents,\n  neither of which is completely applicable to its use in the WIM format, and\n  the first of which contains multiple errors.\n- There does not seem to be any official documentation for LZMS, so my comments\n  and code in `src/lzms_decompress.c` may in fact be the best documentation\n  available for this particular compression format.\n\nThe algorithms used by wimlib's compression and decompression codecs are\ninspired by a variety of sources, including open source projects and computer\nscience papers.\n\nThe code in `ntfs-3g_apply.c` and `ntfs-3g_capture.c` uses the [NTFS-3G\nlibrary](https://github.com/tuxera/ntfs-3g), which is a library for reading and\nwriting to NTFS filesystems (the filesystem used by recent versions of Windows).\n\nA limited number of other free programs can handle some parts of the WIM\nfile format:\n\n- 7-Zip is able to extract and create WIMs (as well as files in many other\n  archive formats).  However, wimlib is designed specifically to handle WIM\n  files and provides features previously only available in Microsoft's\n  implementation, such as the ability to mount WIMs read-write as well as\n  read-only, the ability to create compressed WIMs, the correct handling of\n  security descriptors and hard links, and support for LZMS compression.\n\n- [`ImagePyX`](https://github.com/maxpat78/ImagePyX) is a Python program that\n  provides some capabilities of `wimlib-imagex`, with the help of external\n  compression codecs.\n\nIf you are looking for an archive format that provides features similar to WIM\nbut was designed primarily for UNIX, you may want to consider\n[SquashFS](https://docs.kernel.org/filesystems/squashfs.html).  However, you may\nfind that wimlib works surprisingly well on UNIX.  It will store hard links and\nsymbolic links, and it supports storing standard UNIX file permissions (owners,\ngroups, and modes); special files such as device nodes and FIFOs; and extended\nattributes.  Actually, I use it to back up my own files on Linux!\n\n# History\n\nwimlib was originally a project started by Carl Thijssen for use on Linux in the\n[Ultimate Deployment Appliance](https://www.ultimatedeployment.org).  Since then\nthe code has been entirely rewritten and improved (main author: Eric Biggers).\nWindows support has been available since version 1.3.0 (March 2013).  A list of\nversion-to-version changes can be found in the [NEWS file](NEWS.md).\n\n# Notices\n\nwimlib is free software that comes with NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by\nlaw.  For full details, see the [COPYING file](COPYING).\n\nBug reports, suggestions, and other contributions are appreciated and should be\nposted to [the forums](https://wimlib.net/forums/).\n\nwimlib is independently developed and does not contain any code, data, or files\ncopyrighted by Microsoft.  It is not known to be affected by any patents.\n","project_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fchris1111%2Fwimlib-imagex-package","html_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/projects/github.com%2Fchris1111%2Fwimlib-imagex-package","lists_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fchris1111%2Fwimlib-imagex-package/lists"}