FILE ATTRIBUTES

All files have four special values, or attributes,which determine how the file will act in special situations. These attributes can be set through software.
1) HIDDEN = It will not be displayed when the DIR command is performed.
2) READ-ONLY = It can be modified or deleted.
3) SYSTEM = Only used for System files such as IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS. Its simply a identifier to these files.
4) ARCHIVE = Used by backup software to identify files that have been changed since their last backup.

ATTRIBUT.EXE =Is an external DOS program that allows for the inspection and changing of file ATTRIBUTES.

You can add or remove an attribute to a file by using + or -

You can add or remove an attribute to a file by using + or -
TYPEING
A = ARCHIVES R = READONLY H = HIDDEN S = SYSTEM

FAT / FAT 16

A map of a hard disk that defines the exact location of tracks, sectors, and clusters on the storage medium.Table used by DOS and early Windows 3.x to place and locate files on a disk.Its a special file located in sector 0 on a disk, which contains information about the sizes of files stored on the disk and which clusters contain which files.Also refered by some as FAT 16. But in reality FAT 16 did not come along till DOS 4.Which was a 16 bit FAT.

FAT 12

A 12 - bit FAT only used by Floppies. Because they store a smaller amount of data.

FAT 32

An improvement on the file allocation table in Windows 95, Released in Windows 95 known as OSR2,and Windows 98. FAT32 raises the number of bits used to address clusters and makes each cluster smaller.FAT32 supports hard disks of up to 2 terabytes (2,048GB),which is a thousand times greater than Windows 95's previous 2GB limit. FAT32 also greatly increases the number of clusters on a logical drive, providing greater storage efficiency.Versions of Windows 95 before FAT32 had too much slack space caused by allocating a large amount of disk space to even the smallest files. FAT 32 most important factor is the fact that it produces more efficient storage utilization. Windows 2000 can also support FAT 32.

VFAT

Virtual File Allocation Table.The 32 bit file system used in Windows for workgroups and later releases of Windows 95. It servered as an interface between applications and the physical FAT. Its most important feature was the support of long file names.

NTFS

NTFS (New Technology) File System. The file system used by Windows NT, 2000 and XP. It supports multiple file systems, has file recovery for hard disk crashes, uses the Unicode character set,uses 16 bits (2MB) for each character,65,536 char.and provides for file names up o 255 characters long.

NTFS offers a number of improvements over FAT and HPFS (high performance file system),in terms of performance, extendibility,and security.

Notable features of NTFS include:
Use of a b-tree directory scheme to keep track of file clusters Information about a file's cluster and other data is stored with each cluster,not just a governing table(as FAT is) Support for very large files (up to 2 to the 64th power or approximately 16 billion byte in size) An access control list(access control list) that lets a server administrator control who can access specific files

Integrated file compression,Support for names based on Unicode Support for long file names as well as "8 by 3" names Data security on both removable and fixed disks

How NTFS Works When a hard disk is formatted (initialized), it is divided into partitions or major divisions of the total physical hard disk space. Within each partition, the operating system keeps track of all the files that are stored by that operating system. Each file is actually stored on the hard disk in one or more cluster or disk spaces of a predefined uniform size. Using NTFS, the sizes of clusters range from 512 byte to 64 kilobyte. Windows NT provides a recommended default cluster size for any given drive size.For example, for a 4 GB (gigabyte) drive, the default cluster size is 4 KB (kilobytes). Note that clusters are indivisible. Even the smallest file takes up one cluster and a 4.1 KB file takes up two clusters (or 8 KB) on a 4 KB cluster system.The selection of the cluster size is a trade-off between efficient use of disk space and the number of disk accesses required to access a file. In general, using NTFS,the larger the hard disk the larger the default cluster size,since it's assumed that a system user will prefer to increase performance (fewer disk accesses) at the expense of some amount of space inefficiency. When a file is created using NTFS, a record about the file is created in a special file, the Master File Table (MFT). The record is used to locate a file's possibly scattered clusters. NTFS tries to find contiguous storage space that will hold the entire file (all of its clusters).

In W2K, any NTFS drive will be automatically updated to NTFS5, so if you have NT4 you HAVE to be at service pack 4 or higher. In the betas this was only true of Server but it is now true for workstation as well. This happens even if you take an NTFS4 hard drive and attach it to an W2K system just to access something and it happens to any removable NTFS4 drives as soon as they are mounted by W2K.