Explore FreeBSD filesystem under Windows?

[Matthew Seaman]

Brian Astill wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 09:13 am, Matthew Seaman wrote:
> 
>>Ah.  A crucial bit of information that was missing from the original
>>post.  Standard practice in that case is to create a partition on the
>>system with a filesystem that both OSes can read and write.  Between
>>Windows and FreeBSD that boils down to msdosfs, or in Windows-speak
>>FAT32. (FAT12 and FAT16 are also supported, but why on earth would
>>you want to use them if FAT32 works?)
> 
> 
> Sounds fine - BUT!  M$ being M$ even different versions of Windoze 
> cannot read different M$ files.  eg  WinNT cannot read FAT32.  The NTFS 
> in XP is different from that in WinNT.  Other versions of Windoze 
> cannot read either of the NTFS versions.  The only "universal" is 
> FAT16, which limits you to 2G partitions.  
> So ... if your flavour of Windoze can read FAT32, a FAT32 partition is a 
> very good idea because all the commonly-available unices can read it as 
> well.  
> If it can't ...  the options aren't so good.  I'd think ext2 would be 
> the only workable alternative to FAT16, but neither is desirable.
> 
> BTW, I haven't found one, but does anyone have a way to make WinNT read 
> FAT32?

You know, every time I think I'm becoming too cynical about the Windows
world, all I need to do is read a post like this, and remind myself that
it is impossible to be /too/ cynical about Windows.

The only possible reason M$ could have for withdrawing FAT32 support
completely from their product line is to make it harder for people to
interoperate with free-Unixoid systems.  A move which must be based on
the arrogant belief that they have the world clasped so firmly by the
short-and-curlies that it will do /anything/ other than give up using
Windows.

That is a very curious idea.  People want their computers to
interoperate.  There's a huge effort going into making that happen in
the Free-Unix world.  If M$ starts trying to remove all of the
functionality that permits that, then one day they are going to wake up
and find that their userbase has decamped to running the sort of systems
where they can actually get stuff done...

It would be comical if it wasn't so tragic.  M$ needs to learn the
lessons of history: there have been any number of corporate giants who
have achieved some sort of transitory pre-eminence in computing and then
faded right away. (Where is DEC nowadays? Just a small part of a
sub-division of HP) And the start of their downfall was because they
tried to lock their customers into their proprietary systems, instead of
competing on equal terms.

Anyhow, this really is getting off-topic for freebsd-questions at ... and
should have gone to freebsd-advocacy at ... instead.  Followup-to: set 
appropriately.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                       8 Dane Court Manor
                                                       School Rd
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey         Tilmanstone
Tel: +44 1304 617253                                  Kent, CT14 0JL UK
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