[OT] NT, software reliability, and the lack thereof.

From: Max Eskin <max82_at_surfree.com>
Date: Tue Mar 16 16:24:06 1999

On Tue, 16 Mar 1999, Mike Ford wrote:
>I don't get it, explain slowly please.

In Windows 95, the MS-DOS file system is used for backwards compatibility,
but the engineers decided to implement long filenames. They do this by
using adjacent entries in the file allocation table for the same file. So,
while DOS sees 8 characters, and 3 in the extension, as usual, Windows 95
knows to check the following entries for the rest of the filename (this
means that less files can be stored in the root directory, BTW). But in
MS-DOS, you can't see the full filename, so Micros~1 decided to do
something else: they take the first six characters of the filename, append
a ~1. If the ~1 is taken, it appends a ~2 instead, and so on. So, if I
make a file called 'Microsoft Internet Files.doc' in Windows 95 and then
try to look at it in MS-DOS, it will simply say Micros~1.doc. Of course,
since MS-DOS isn't case-sensitive, it should really be MICROS~1.DOC.

 --Max Eskin (max82_at_surfree.com)
Received on Tue Mar 16 1999 - 16:24:06 GMT