The Image Mastering Application Programming Interface, or IMAPI, is a component of Microsoft Windows operating system used for CD and DVD authoring and recording. Windows applications such as

Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP) is the first media player and media library application that was developed by Microsoft for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as ...

Windows Media Center Windows Media Center (WMC) is a defunct digital video recorder and media player created by Microsoft. Media Center was first introduced to Windows in 2002 on Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE). It was included in Home Premium and Ultimate ...

Windows Movie Maker Windows Movie Maker (known as Windows Live Movie Maker for the 2009 and 2011 releases) is a discontinued video editing software program by Microsoft. It was first included in Windows Me on September 14, 2000 and in Windows XP on October 25, 2001 ...

Windows DVD Maker Windows DVD Maker is a discontinued DVD authoring application developed by Microsoft introduced in Windows Vista, available in the Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista for users to create slideshows and videos for playback on media ...

, and

Windows Explorer File Explorer, previously known as Windows Explorer, is a file manager application that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user interface for accessing the file ...

use IMAPI to create

ISO 9660 ISO 9660 (also known as ECMA-119) is a file system for optical disc media. Being sold by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) the file system is considered an international technical standard. Since the specification is ...

and "burn" discs. Windows refers to discs created using IMAPI as ''Mastered'' burns in contrast to the term,

Live File System Live File System is the term Microsoft uses to describe the packet writing method of creating discs in Windows Vista and later, which allows writeable optical media to act like mass storage by replicating its file operations. Live File System let ...

which implies

packet writing Packet writing (or incremental packet writing, IPW) is an optical disc recording technology used to allow write-once and rewritable CD and DVD media to be used in a similar manner to a floppy disk from within the operating system. Details ...

and does not use IMAPI.

Release history

IMAPI was originally introduced with

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was release to manufacturing, released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Wind ...

. IMAPI version 2.0 was released with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. On 26 June 2007, this version was released as an update for Windows XP and

Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003 is the sixth version of Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows NT family of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on March 28, 2003 and generally available on April 24, ...

after Microsoft received requests from hardware and software vendors. On 19 January 2009, Microsoft released the Windows Feature Pack For Storage 1.0. This update allows IMAPI 2.0 to support Recordable Blu-ray Disc (

BD-R Blu-ray Disc Recordable (BD-R) refers to two direct to disc optical disc recording technologies that can be recorded on to a Blu-ray-based optical disc with an optical disc recorder. BD-R discs can be written to once, whereas Blu-ray Disc Recor ...

) and Rewritable Blu-ray Disc (

BD-RE Blu-ray Disc Recordable (BD-R) refers to two direct to disc optical disc recording technologies that can be recorded on to a Blu-ray-based optical disc with an optical disc recorder. BD-R discs can be written to once, whereas Blu-ray Disc Rec ...

) media. It also adds support for the

Universal Disk Format Universal Disk Format (UDF) is an open, vendor-neutral file system for computer data storage for a broad range of media. In practice, it has been most widely used for DVDs and newer optical disc formats, supplanting ISO 9660. Due to its design, ...

(UDF) 2.5 file system. Windows Feature Pack for Storage is available for Windows XP or later and is integrated into Windows 7.

Overview

IMAPI provides the ability to create and burn single-session and multi-session discs, including bootable discs. It also provides low-level access to the burn engine for developing support for new devices, as well as access to extended recorder properties. IMAPI supports every major writable CD and DVD format including: ;

Compact discs The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in Octob ...

: *Recordable CD (

CD-R CD-R (Compact disc-recordable) is a digital optical disc storage format. A CD-R disc is a compact disc that can be written once and read arbitrarily many times. CD-R discs (CD-Rs) are readable by most CD readers manufactured prior to the int ...

). Formerly known as CD Write Once *Rewritable CD (

CD-RW CD-RW (Compact Disc-Rewritable) is a digital optical disc storage format introduced in 1997. A CD-RW compact disc (CD-RWs) can be written, read, erased, and re-written. CD-RWs, as opposed to CDs, require specialized readers that have sens ...

) ;DVDs (IMAPI v2.0): *Recordable DVD (

DVD-R DVD recordable and DVD rewritable are optical disc recording technologies. Both terms describe DVD optical discs that can be written to by a DVD recorder, whereas only 'rewritable' discs are able to erase and rewrite data. Data is written ('b ...

and

DVD+R DVD recordable and DVD rewritable are optical disc recording technologies. Both terms describe DVD optical discs that can be written to by a DVD recorder, whereas only 'rewritable' discs are able to erase and rewrite data. Data is written ('b ...

) *Rewritable DVD (

DVD-RW DVD recordable and DVD rewritable are optical disc recording technologies. Both terms describe DVD optical discs that can be written to by a DVD recorder, whereas only 'rewritable' discs are able to erase and rewrite data. Data is written ('b ...

and

DVD+RW DVD recordable and DVD rewritable are optical disc recording technologies. Both terms describe DVD optical discs that can be written to by a DVD recorder, whereas only 'rewritable' discs are able to erase and rewrite data. Data is written ('burne ...

) *Recordable dual layer DVD (

DVD-R DL DVD-R DL (DL stands for Dual Layer), also called DVD-R9, is a derivative of the DVD-R format standard. DVD-R DL discs hold 8.5 GB by utilizing two recordable dye layers, each capable of storing a little less than the 4.7 gigabyte (GB) of a single ...

and

DVD+R DL The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

formats) *Random-access DVD (

DVD-RAM DVD-RAM (DVD Random Access Memory) is a DVD-based disc specification presented in 1996 by the DVD Forum, which specifies rewritable DVD-RAM media and the appropriate DVD writers. DVD-RAM media have been used in computers as well as camcorde ...

) ;Blu-ray discs (IMAPI v2.0 with Feature Pack for Storage): *Recordable Blu-ray Disc (

) *Rewritable Blu-ray Disc (

) ;Others *Disc-like media, such as

Iomega REV REV is a removable hard disk storage system from Iomega. The small removable disks store 35, 70, or 120 gigabytes (GB) and are hard-drive technology. Like a standard hard drive, the REV system uses a flying head to read and write data to a spinnin ...

IMAPI supports writing disks in

(including CDDA Audio) and Joliet. IMAPI v2.0 also supports writing discs with

file system. IMAPI version 2.0 supports the following additional features: * User-mode API instead of a kernel-mode API * Support for multiple optical drives as well as simultaneously recording to multiple drives * Support for creating

ISO image An optical disc image (or ISO image, from the ISO 9660 file system used with CD-ROM media) is a disk image that contains everything that would be written to an optical disc, disk sector by disc sector, including the optical disc file system. I ...

s * Support for

VBScript VBScript (''"Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Edition"'') is an Active Scripting language developed by Microsoft that is modeled on Visual Basic. It allows Microsoft Windows system administrators to generate powerful tools for managing computers ...

scripting * Support for locking the recorder while burning Unlike IMAPI version 1.0, IMAPI version 2.0 is implemented as a DLL rather than as a

Windows service In Windows NT operating systems, a Windows service is a computer program that operates in the background. It is similar in concept to a Unix daemon. A Windows service must conform to the interface rules and protocols of the Service Control Manager ...

Shortcomings

IMAPI 2.0 suffers from some limitations, notably that will not allow a filesystem to be imported from a raw image (.iso file), only from an optical drive. In effect this means that while it can generate disk images, it cannot be used to modify them.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Image Mastering Api Windows components Microsoft application programming interfaces

Release history

Overview

Shortcomings

See also

References