Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 16:54:43 +1200 From: physmsa AT cantua DOT canterbury DOT ac DOT nz (Mr M S Aitchison) Subject: Re: long filename problems... To: opendos AT delorie DOT com Message-id: <199708110454.QAA09442@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz> Precedence: bulk Rik wrote... > i'm trying to keep my OpenDOS and Win95 partitions seperate, but i forgot > to remove some long filenames from a couple files on the OpenDOS partition. > now, when i try to delete the directory they used to be in (i deleted them, > thinking it would eliminate the LFNs as well) i get an error saying the > directory isn't empty. This is annoying. If you use a disk editor to zero the bytes of the directory where the longname parts of the now-deleted files reside, it will probably not corrupt your disk :-} I had a similar problem, at the stage of trying to re-install Win95. It complained there was something wrong with the directory before starting to properly install, and nothing other than a disk editor fixed it. You might be luckier than me with a chkdsk though. > i think that OpenDOS should totally avoid LFNs, at least in the crappy way > Win95 does. One of my main reasons for hating Win95 is the crappy FAT > system. as soon as Win98 comes out i'm switching over to FAT32 on that > partition. I agree that ext2 or something like that, done properly, would be the best idea, by far. Remember that FAT32 doesn't really improve FAT much, other than allow a smaller cluster size on large disks (the downside is there is a *huge* amount of work to do in the File Allocation Table, since each FAT will sprawl over many Kb, and it retains the inefficient sequential list of clusters). Chris wrote... >... but the main problem with [ext2] would be compatibility issues... One good thing is that the DOS call interface to LFN support (int 21h, AH=71h) doesn't have to be tied to the MS way of implementing long names. Software that uses that API could be made to work with ext2fs, hpfs, ntfs or other systems. Programs should not normally try to access the disk sectors directly to "do" long names, but go through the system. What *is* a problem, is where there is a mixture of old an new software; it has been suggested that "legacy" programs be excluded from access to any long-named files to avoid risks (OS/2 pretty much does this). There might be a safe middle ground, but it is a nighmare (under OpenDOS or WIN95) when you consider the number of ways the present (MS) design of the LFN system can go wrong. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Aitchison, Physics & Astronomy \_ Phone : +64 3 3642-947 a.h. 3371-225 University of Canterbury, (/' Callsign: ZL3TQE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------