How does the Vista setup extract from install.wim?

[dennis123123]

Hi, I wondered if someone could help me...

I am trying to find out how the vista setup program or dvd extracts files from install.wim without any of the dlls/exes available in the WAIK for doing this.

boot.wim lacks imagex.exe or wimgapi.dll, so it cannot be possible to use these.

My reason for wanting to know is to try and lift the restrictions of needing 7zip or waik files for simply extracting files from WIMs

[fizban2]

there are callable APIs the Setup.exe uses to select the WIM and extract it from the install.com. take a look at the .chm file in the waik and you will see a help file for theses API calls

[dennis123123]

Thanks for the reply, however I dont know how it can achieve this without the file Wimgapi.dll which the WAIK documentation refers to. this file is not present on the DVD (well I cant find it!) but it somehow finds a way. Am i overlooking something with regards to this? The API calls look easy enough to use if I can solve the dll issue.

[fizban2]

Thanks for the reply, however I dont know how it can achieve this without the file Wimgapi.dll which the WAIK documentation refers to. this file is not present on the DVD (well I cant find it!) but it somehow finds a way. Am i overlooking something with regards to this? The API calls look easy enough to use if I can solve the dll issue.

if you are looking to add the functionality to your own app, you will need to grab the

wimgapi.h, wimgapi.lib

files from the WAIK (if they are still in it) if not you will need to grab the Windows SDK as i beleive they are in there

[dennis123123]

Yes, the header and lib are with the WAIK. "C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\SDKs\WIMGAPI\X86\*.*"

When my program is written including the header file and linking the lib, surely it needs the dll file to be present somewhere to be able to use its functions? What i meant was that dll is not on the vista setup dvd at all, so where on earth does setup.exe find it?!

Edited June 29, 2008 by dennis123123

[Tripredacus]

This seems to be backwards. The actual setup.exe on the install disc doesn't use the WAIK. The WAIK is just one method of doing the same thing. The install DVD would likely use other libraries when it installs. In other words, Microsoft didn't make their install DVDs with the WAIK, they used the WAIK to mimic their install DVDs.