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NTFS Support for DOS/Win3.x,95 (fwd)
This could be interesting, since some people considered the NTFS file
system for Linux to be news.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 22 Apr 1996 15:17:04 -0700
From: mark eugene russinovich <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: NTFS Support for DOS/Win3.x,95
We are releasing our first version of NTFSDOS, a DOS/Windows
NTFS disk recognizer, today at Andrew Schulman's web site:
ftp://ftp.ora.com/windows/pub/examples/win95.update/schulman.html
In addition, the executable has been posted to:
comp.binaries.ms-windows
Below is the README that accompanies the executable.
======================================================================
NTFS File System Redirector for DOS/Windows V0.9 (read-only)
Copyright (C) 1996 Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell
======================================================================
NTFSDOS.EXE is a network file system redirecter for DOS/Windows
that is able to recognize and mount NTFS drives for transparent
access. It makes NTFS drives appear virtually indistinguishable
from standard FAT drives, providing the ability to navigate, view
and execute programs on them from DOS or from Windows, including
from the Windows 3.1 File Manager and Windows 95 Explorer.
Here is sample output from an NTFSDOS session under DOS 7.0 (Windows 95):
----------------------------------------------------------------------
C:\ntfsdos>ntfsdos
NTFS File System Redirector for DOS/Windows V0.9 (read-only)
Copyright (C) 1996 Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell
Initialized 512KB of EMS cache.
Mounting NTFS partition(0x80:3) as drive: H
C:\ntfsdos>h:
H:\>dir
Volume in drive H is ntfs
Directory of H:\
ctrl2cap <DIR> 04-09-96 3:15p
dblscan <DIR> 04-09-96 3:15p
filemon <DIR> 04-09-96 3:15p
flush <DIR> 04-09-96 3:15p
new <DIR> 04-08-96 5:35p
NEWFILE 9 04-18-96 4:31p
record <DIR> 04-09-96 3:15p
vcmon <DIR> 04-09-96 3:15p
vsd <DIR> 04-09-96 3:15p
vxdmon <DIR> 04-09-96 3:15p
winnt <DIR> 04-19-96 9:02a
1 file(s) 9 bytes
10 dir(s) 79,872 bytes free
H:\>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Installation and Use
--------------------
To use NTFSDOS, simply execute it from the DOS command line (DOS
5.0 or greater is required). Executing NTFSDOS before Windows is
started will create logical drives that are visible globally once inside
Windows. Executing NTFSDOS in a DOS box means that the NTFS drives
only exist within the DOS box where NTFSDOS was executed.
When NTFSDOS starts, it will scan all hard-disk parititions on
your system to look for NTFS drives. It will mount all NTFS drives
it finds as unique DOS logical drive letters, and will inform you
as it does so.
NTFSDOS implements its own caching, and uses one of two types of
memory, depending on how your system is configured. Its first
choice is to use EMS memory for caching, as this minimizes demands
placed on conventional memory. If you start NTFSDOS before Windows,
then HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.EXE (without the /NOEMS option), both of which
can be found in the WINDOWS directory under Windows 95 or the DOS
directory under Windows 3.1, or their equivalents, must be started
before NTFSDOS. If NTFSDOS does not detect an EMS server, it will
resort to allocating 64KB of conventional memory for its cache. In
either case, it will inform you of its action.
There is currently no way to unload NTFSDOS from memory once it has
started.
Notes on Usage
--------------
NTFSDOS is being released with no known bugs, although it does
currently have some shortcomings, most of which we hope to solve
for a next release:
- executing some Windows programs on NTFS drives results in
messages indicating that some DLL is missing. This error appears
to be the result of updates to the network redirecter specification
for Windows 95 which are undocumented. Specifically, it appears that
INT 2F/1123 (qualify pathname) has changed and must be supported. If
you have any information regarding this, please contact us.
- modify and access times are not supported (for example when
"properties" is selected in the Windows 95 explorer) since their
addition to the Windows 95 network redirecter spec is undocumented.
NTFSDOS does have this time information available to it, so if you
have any knowledge of the redirecter support required to provide it,
please let us know.
- performance is particularly poor when viewing extremely large
directories (that contain hundreds of files) under the Windows 95
explorer. This is due to a blind, sector-base caching scheme. We
plan to implement "smart caching" (tm) :-), that adds directory
information to the caching scheme. This should improve performance
dramatically.
- opening some types of documents, for example bitmaps, results in a
message from Windows that the document cannot be registered. This
again appears to be a side-effect of a changed Windows 95
redirecter interface. Unfortunatley, to view these files you must
first copy them to a non-NTFS drive and then open them. If you have
any information about this, please contact us.
- NTFSDOS does not currently provide long-file name support for its
NTFS drives under Windows 95. We are looking into providing this for
the next release.
Reaching Us
-----------
We would appreciate any feedback you have concerning this utility
including suggestions and bug reports. Mark can be reached at
[email protected], and Bryce can be reached at [email protected].
Acknowledgements
----------------
Significant understanding of the NTFS file system layout was derived by
studying the Linux-based NTFS driver code maintained by Martin von Lowis.
We acknowledge his indirect contribution to this endeavor.
Andrew Schulman, et. al.'s, book, Undocumented DOS (Addison-Wesley),
was invaluable in providing network redirecter information necessary for
implementing NTFSDOS.