August 02, 2007

Nifty free bit o' software

If you've got a dual boot Windows/Linux system, there have probably been times when you wished that you could retrieve/copy/open your Linux created files while working in Windows. Instead, you had to shut down and reboot into Linux, save the data to a FAT32 device and then reboot back into Windows. Well, you no longer have to do the OS hokey pokey, at least in this instance. I give you Ext2 Installable File System for Windows. Excerpt:


It installs a pure kernel mode file system driver Ext2fs.sys, which actually extends the Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 operating system to include the Ext2 file system. Since it is executed on the same software layer at the Windows NT operating system core like all of the native file system drivers of Windows (for instance NTFS, FASTFAT, or CDFS for Joliet/ISO CD-ROMs), all applications can access directly to Ext2 volumes. Ext2 volumes get drive letters (for instance G . Files, and directories of an Ext2 volume appear in file dialogs of all applications. There is no need to copy files from or to Ext2 volumes in order to work with them.
...
Detailed list of features of the file system driver Extfs.sys:

  • Supports Windows NT4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows 2003 (x86 processors only).
  • All operations you would expect: Reading and writing files, listing directories, creating, renaming, moving and deleting files or directories, querying and modifying the volume's label.
  • Files larger than 4 GBytes. (Please read the FAQ section, too.)
  • Paging files are supported. (A paging file is a file "pagefile.sys", which Windows swaps virtual memory to.) Users may create paging files at NT's control panel at Ext2 volumes.
  • Specific functions of the I/O subsystem of NT: Byte range locks, notification of changes of directories, oplocks (which are required by the NT LAN manager for sharing files via SMB).


Posted by: Physics Geek at 12:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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