Vista File loss.

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

(ie. the file system created by Vista could not be mistaken for a file system created by XP because of the Translational feature added by Vista)

Sure it could, especially since we don't know how the transactions are implemented in the filesystem.

It doesn't make changes to the filesystem.

It has to, there has to be some method in the filesystem to support the atomic transactions.

for all I know they're journalling into some text file buried in system volume information.


Also the whole FAT thing is shenanigans...
926069 You cannot select the Upgrade option when you try to install Windows Vista, and you receive the following message: "Upgrade has been disabled"
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;926069


I've pinged the guy who wrote ntfs.sys. He's prolly crazy busy these days but he may be able to share some insite.

 

[Smilin]

I was surprised to hear back but here's the skinny:

Yes, there has been new functionality added to NTFS. Txf which added transaction symantics is an example. However, there have been NO physical layout changes to the filesystem and the NTFS version number has not changed.

 

[Shawn]

It doesn't convert anything because Vista only takes 20mins to install and I have 4 physical drives totaling 1TB. Plus I've gone back to WinXP and everything still works fine.

 

[Nothinman]

Yes, there has been new functionality added to NTFS. Txf which added transaction symantics is an example. However, there have been NO physical layout changes to the filesystem and the NTFS version number has not changed.

Then how do they guarantee the atomicity of the transactions if there's nothing on disk to keep track of them? Unless by "no physical layout changes" he means that they created a new hidden file or something else that fits into the current NTFS layout for them.

 

[Smilin]

Good question 🙂

Answer is probably in the rest of that long video somewhere. From the little I've seen, not everything is doing transactions. There are new system calls you can make if you need your write to be transactional.


(MFT has always been journaled of course).

 

[Nothinman]

Yea, I get that you have to explicitly setup and use the transaction functionality, but there has to be some way for the driver to track the transaction even across reboots otherwise they'd be useless.