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Title: Windows filenames? Post by: onpon4 on September 08, 2010, 10:42:15 pm This is just an interest question.
Is anyone here familiar with how file names are handled in Windows? What I know is that, with current Windows versions, it is possible to use the 8.3 file format to reference a file. Before, I assumed that this is just a conversion of the normal file name. But my school's programming, desktop publishing, digital imaging, and robotics teacher (I suppose you could call him the "computers" teacher) seemed to imply earlier that their machines (which run Windows XP Professional) actually uses the 8.3 format, with a conversion applied to get it to the "normal" file name. I'm asking because I was always under the impression that the 8.3 format was abandoned after the FAT16 file system. Title: Re: Windows filenames? Post by: Draxas on September 09, 2010, 01:00:57 am I'm pretty sure it was abandoned with Win NT, yeah. I know for sure that they tossed many of the more useless DOS conventions out the window (har!) when they made that and XP (as well as not basing them on the DOS code, unlike Win 95/98).
Title: Re: Windows filenames? Post by: jucce on September 09, 2010, 04:35:57 am This is just an interest question. It seems they maintain 8.3 support for backwards compatibility, look here:Is anyone here familiar with how file names are handled in Windows? What I know is that, with current Windows versions, it is possible to use the 8.3 file format to reference a file. Before, I assumed that this is just a conversion of the normal file name. But my school's programming, desktop publishing, digital imaging, and robotics teacher (I suppose you could call him the "computers" teacher) seemed to imply earlier that their machines (which run Windows XP Professional) actually uses the 8.3 format, with a conversion applied to get it to the "normal" file name. I'm asking because I was always under the impression that the 8.3 format was abandoned after the FAT16 file system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.3_filename Also you can read the articles about NTFS and FAT. actually uses the 8.3 format, with a conversion applied to get it to the "normal" file name. How would that work? If the 8.3 name is "MICROS~1.EXE" but the full name is "Microsoft Media Player.exe" you couldn't convert or guess that from the shortened version.Title: Re: Windows filenames? Post by: Novus on September 09, 2010, 10:21:15 am How would that work? If the 8.3 name is "MICROS~1.EXE" but the full name is "Microsoft Media Player.exe" you couldn't convert or guess that from the shortened version. In FAT, each long file name is encoded as a bunch of extra directory entries, but these entries have a slightly different format and are not really short file names; this is to ensure that systems without long file name support (e.g. MS-DOS) ignore them. NTFS (usually) still keeps track of short file names so that DOS and Windows 3 programs can use them, but is primarily based on long file names. |