16 Mar
1999
16 Mar
'99
8:55 a.m.
At 07:45 PM 3/15/99 -0800, Sellam Ismail wrote:
Well, actually it should be "MICROS~1".
- John
Well, Micros~1 assures us that they have a stable server operating
^^^^^^^^
Didn't anyone else realize how clever that was? :) 
2:12 p.m.
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4:24 p.m.
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(a)surfree.com)
4:45 p.m.
Max Eskin wrote:
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.
I think a friend of mine helped write the Win95 filesystem code (though it
may have been NT). I'm sure he put a LOT of work in. Too bad the results
are so ungainly.
Correct me if I'm wrong... they need to store the DOS "short" file name,
followed by the Win95 "long" file name (possibly taking up several directory
entries).
Is it ONLY adjacency that ties the two names together? No wonder they can
be separated. When Win95 had just come out, I amused myself by running
the disk utilities that came with it. I got some very alarming error
messages, things like:
The following file may have lost its long filename:
C:\WINDOWS\SOL.EXE
If this is the correct long filename, click OK.
Otherwise, click Cancel:
c:\windows\system32\bubbles.bmp
I'm making it up, but not completely. I do remember SOL.EXE and BUBBLES.BMP
wre involved in one case. Then there's the problem of the disk utilities
*starting over again*, seemingly at random. The defragmentation program
would be happily scanning C: and then it would put up a notice ("I need to
start again") and then redo everything it had done until then. This could
happen a couple of times in a row.
I should also mention that the extra directory entires need to be hidden
from DOS. Get this. They are marked as *volume
labels*. There's only
supposed to be one, and obviously DOS ignored the others
instead of
complaining. (Before Windows, I mean.) This is especially shameful since
there are actually a couple of unused attribute bits that MS could
legitimately have used!
And is it true that the LFNs are stored in Unicode?
-- Derek
5:04 p.m.
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5:27 p.m.
On Tue, 16 Mar 1999, Derek Peschel wrote:
*starting over again*, seemingly at random. The
defragmentation program
would be happily scanning C: and then it would put up a notice ("I need to
start again") and then redo everything it had done until then. This could
happen a couple of times in a row.
The reason for this is disk accesses. If you moved the mouse, and it tried
to swap in some tooltip code, that would restart the utility. After
screwing up my system quite severely several times with Norton Utilities,
Defrag, etc. I've resolved never to fiddle with Windows again. The thing
is, I once stopped Defrag, by clicking the stop button, saying yes, etc.
It must have forgotten to flush the buffer, since half the hard drive's
contents vanished.
--Max Eskin (max82(a)surfree.com)
5:43 p.m.
Max Eskin wrote:
On Tue, 16 Mar 1999, Derek Peschel wrote:
>*starting over again*, seemingly at random. The
defragmentation program
>would be happily scanning C: and then it would put up a notice ("I need to
>start again") and then redo everything it had done until then. This could
>happen a couple of times in a row.
The reason for this is disk accesses. If you moved the
mouse, and it tried
to swap in some tooltip code, that would restart the utility. After
screwing up my system quite severely several times with Norton Utilities,
Defrag, etc. I've resolved never to fiddle with Windows again. The thing
is, I once stopped Defrag, by clicking the stop button, saying yes, etc.
It must have forgotten to flush the buffer, since half the hard drive's
contents vanished.
I suspected you would say something like that. Cameron said something
similar. That only makes me more willing to do what I was going to do
before -- blame the OS. Why is it swapping in so much code? Or, can't the
disk utilities do something to take control of the OS while they're fiddling
with the low-level disk bits?
I'll admit that I haven't seen an OS that allows you to do things AND safely
tweak the disks. Maybe one of the logging file systems? My point is that I
wouldn't be surprised to find that it's a difficult problem to solve.
...of course, MS always seems to solve these things especially badly...
-- Derek
17 Mar
17 Mar
10:28 a.m.
Hi,
When something like this happens try using SCANDISK to recover the lost
info on the harddrive. I compressed a harddrive and it came unmounted
and I lost ALL info on it until I used my rescue disk and ran SCANDISK
and found all my MISSING files right where I left them, on the
harddrive.
HTH.
John Amirault
Max Eskin wrote:
On Tue, 16 Mar 1999, Derek Peschel wrote:
*starting over again*, seemingly at random. The
defragmentation program
would be happily scanning C: and then it would put up a notice ("I need to
start again") and then redo everything it had done until then. This could
happen a couple of times in a row.
The reason for this is disk accesses. If you moved the mouse, and it tried
to swap in some tooltip code, that would restart the utility. After
screwing up my system quite severely several times with Norton Utilities,
Defrag, etc. I've resolved never to fiddle with Windows again. The thing
is, I once stopped Defrag, by clicking the stop button, saying yes, etc.
It must have forgotten to flush the buffer, since half the hard drive's
contents vanished.
--Max Eskin (max82(a)surfree.com) 
16 Mar
16 Mar
7:15 p.m.
On Tue, 16 Mar 1999, Mike Ford wrote:
Gee, thats not funny, its kinda sad. People really use this thing called
Windows 95? Thats illogical. ;)
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.
9431
days inactive
9432
days old
9 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
amirault＠epix.net -
ckaiser＠oa.ptloma.edu -
dpeschel＠u.washington.edu -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
max82＠surfree.com -
mikeford＠netwiz.net