Windows File Systems

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003, collectively referred to as Windows NT 5.x support a limited number of file systems, each having a specific purpose. It looks at how Windows NT 5.x provides all the basic file system services expected of a modern operating system through its small set of general-purpose and specialized file systems.

From the Paper:

"NTFS is a modern general-purpose file system. It supports journaling, in order to more quickly restore the file system to a consistent state after an incorrect shutdown. (AlistairMcMillan, et. al. 2005) NTFS has robust metadata support, with a built-in ability to add new file attributes, which Microsoft has used to add features such as DFS indexing, which was not originally intended as a feature of NTFS. One use of this metadata is the file ownership and permissions model used on Windows NT 5.x. File ownership and access control permissions are stored as file metadata. These access control lists, or ACLs can express a sophisticated set of permissions, based on listing which users and groups of users have permission to perform certain actions on a file. Available actions include reading the data in the file, modifying the file and executing it, if it is a program. NTFS has alternate data streams to support multi-part files such as the split resource fork and data fork used on Mac OS."

More papers on Windows File Systems:

• Research Proposal # 105771 : "Cryptographic File Systems in Windows NT"
• Analytical Essay # 116642 : "Microsoft Windows Operating System"
• Essay # 61682 : "Windows XP"

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