How does WIM mounting work?

Discussion in 'Windows 10' started by cybrian, Aug 29, 2019.

  1. cybrian

    cybrian MDL Novice

    Oct 9, 2008
    14
    2
    0
    Hi,

    I'm very interested in the low level operations of WIM mounting, as I really would like to know what's actually going on when I mount a WIM, when I alter it, and when I commit or discard it. Additionally, I wonder how much of this is reused when using WIMBOOT, or if it's a completely separate driver.

    I've tried looking up information online, but really the most that I could find is that unlike most disk image formats a WIM file's lowest level atomic piece of data is the file, not the block/sector, so maybe there's some sort of hashing involved or something?

    I'm going to have to use procmon to watch system calls while mounting, but perhaps someone else has done research/RE into this in the past? I figure this is probably the best forum to ask on.

    Thanks!