Windows Server 2003 File Structures

This section covers the essential information you'll need to work with files. An understanding of file basics can make your job as an administrator a lot easier.

Major Features of FAT and NTFS

What you can or can't do with files and folders in Windows Server 2003 depends on the file system type. Windows Server 2003 provides direct support for FAT and NTFS.

FAT Volumes

FAT volumes rely on an allocation table to keep track of the status of files and folders. Although FAT is adequate for most file and folder needs, it's rather limited. Two versions of FAT are supported on Windows Server 2003:

• FAT16

  FAT16 is the version of FAT widely used on Microsoft Windows NT 4.0. FAT16 supports a 16-bit file allocation table and is usually referred to as FAT. You'll have optimal performance with volumes that are less than 2  gigabytes (GB).

• FAT32

  FAT32 is the version of FAT introduced with Microsoft Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2 (OSR2) and Microsoft Windows 98. FAT32 supports a 32-bit file allocation table and is usually referred to as FAT32. FAT32 supports smaller cluster sizes than FAT and can more efficiently allocate space. On Windows Server 2003, FAT32 supports volumes up to 32 GB.

Table 13-1 provides a brief summary of FAT and FAT32 features.

Table 13-1. FAT and FAT32 Features Comparison

Feature	FAT	FAT32
File allocation table size	16-bit	32-bit
Maximum volume size	4 GB; best at 2 GB or less	2 terabytes; limited in Windows Server 2003 to 32 GB
Maximum file size	2 GB	4 GB
Operating systems supported	MS-DOS, all versions of Windows	Windows 95 OSR2, Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows Me, Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003
Supports small cluster size	No	Yes
Supports NTFS 4.0 features	No	No
Supports NTFS 5.0 features	No	No
Use on floppy disks	Yes	Yes
Use on removable disks	Yes	Yes

Using NTFS

NTFS offers a robust environment for working with files and folders. Two versions of NTFS have been implemented:

• NTFS 4.0

  NTFS 4.0 is the version used with Windows NT 4.0. It features full support for local and remote access controls on files and folders as well as support for Windows compression. It doesn't support most Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 file system features.

• NTFS 5.0

  NTFS 5.0 is the version used with Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003. It features full support for Active Directory directory service, disk quotas, compression, encryption, and other enhancements. NTFS 5.0 is fully supported by Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 and minimally supported by Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 4 or later.

Note

If you created NTFS volumes on Windows NT 4.0 and upgraded to Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003, the volumes aren't upgraded automatically to NTFS 5.0. You must specifically choose to upgrade the volumes during installation of the operating system or when you install Active Directory.

Table 13-2 provides a brief summary of NTFS 4.0 and NTFS 5.0. Windows NT 4.0 systems with Service Pack 4 or later can access NTFS 5.0 files and folders, provided they don't use any of the new NTFS features.

Table 13-2. NTFS 4.0 and NTFS 5.0 Features Comparison

Feature	NTFS 4.0	NTFS 5.0
Maximum volume size	32 GB	2 terabytes on Master Boot Record (MBR) disks; 18 exabytes on GUID Partition Table (GPT) disks
Maximum file size	32 GB	Only limited by volume size
Operating systems supported	Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003	Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, and Windows NT 4.0 SP 4
Advanced file access permissions	Yes	Yes
Supports Windows compression	Yes	Yes
Supports Windows encryption	No	Yes
Supports Active Directory structures	No	Yes
Supports sparse files	No	Yes
Supports remote storage	No	Yes
Supports disk quotas	No	Yes
Use on floppy disks	No	No
Use on removable disks	Yes	Yes

File Naming

Windows Server 2003 file naming conventions apply to both files and folders. For simplicity, the term file naming is often used to refer to both files and folders. Although Windows Server 2003 file names are case-aware, they aren't case-sensitive. This means you can save a file named MyBook.doc and the file name will be displayed in the correct case. However, you can't save a file called mybook.doc to the same folder.

Both NTFS and FAT support long file names ”up to 255 characters. You can name files using just about any of the available characters, including spaces. However, there are some characters you can't use. They include

 ? * / \ : " < > 

Tip

Using spaces in file names can cause access problems. Any time you reference the file name, you might need to enclose the file name within quotation marks. Also, if you plan to publish the file on the Web, you might need to remove the spaces from the file name or convert them to the underscore character (_) to ensure that Web browsers have easy access to the file.

The following file names are all acceptable:

• My Favorite Short Story.doc

• My_Favorite_Short_Story.doc

• My..Favorite..Short..Story.doc

• My Favorite Short Story!!!.doc

Accessing Long File Names Under MS-DOS

Under MS-DOS and 16-bit FAT file systems, file and directory names are restricted to eight characters with a three-character file extension, such as chapter4.txt. This naming convention is often referred to as the 8.3 file-naming rule or the standard MS-DOS file-naming rule. Because of it, when you work with files at the command prompt you might have problems accessing files and folders.

To support access to long file names, abbreviated file names are created for all files and folders on a system. These file names conform to the standard MS-DOS file-naming rule. You can see the abbreviated file names using the command

 dir /X 

A typical abbreviated file name looks like this:

 PROGRA~1.DOC 

How Windows Server 2003 Creates an Abbreviated File Name

When Windows Server 2003 creates an abbreviated file name from a long file name, it uses the following rules:

• Any spaces in the file name are removed. The file name, My Favorite Short Story.doc, becomes MyFavoriteShortStory.doc.

• All periods in the file name are removed (with the exception of the period separating the file name from the file extension). The file name, My..Favorite..Short..Story.doc, becomes MyFavoriteShortStory.doc.

• Invalid characters under the standard MS-DOS naming rule are replaced with the underscore character (_). The file name, My[Favorite]ShortStory.doc, becomes My_Favorite_Short_Story.doc.

• All remaining characters are converted to uppercase. The file name, My Favorite Short Story.doc, becomes MYFAVORITESHORTSTORY.DOC.

The Rules of Truncation

To make the file conform to the 8.3 naming convention, the file name and file extension are truncated if necessary. The rules for truncation are as follows :

• The file extension is truncated to the first three characters. The file name Mary.text becomes MARY.TEX.

• The file name is truncated to the first six characters (this is the file's root name) and a unique designator is appended. The unique designator follows the convention ~ n , where n is the number of the file with the six-character file name. Following this, the file name, My Favorite Short Story.doc, becomes MYFAVO~1.DOC. The second file in this folder that's truncated to MYFAVO becomes MYFAVO~2.DOC.

  Note

  The file name truncation rule described here is the one you'll usually see, and you won't often have to worry about anything else. However, if you have a lot of files with similar names, you might see another convention used to create the short file name.

  Specifically, if more than four files use the same six-character root, additional file names are created by combining the first two characters of the file name with a four-character hash code and then appending a unique designator. A folder could have files named MYFAVO~1.DOC, MYFAVO~2.DOC, MYFAVO~3.DOC, and MYFAVO~4.DOC. Additional files with this root could be named MY3140~1.DOC, MY40C7~1.DOC, and MYEACC~1.DOC.