What are the "system" and "archive" attributes good for?

[fr]

 

[bsobel]

'Attributes' are additional meta data on a file system object. The archive attribute is usually used to signal if the file has been backed up. E.g. when it is the flag gets cleared. When you first create a file, or write to an existing one, the flag is set as to indicate the file needs to be backed up.

The system flag indicates (in theory) that this file is part of the OS. This was used more in the 'dos' days to protect the boot files and other system files. It's still somewhat used in Windows but, for example, not every file installed by windows is marked as system.

Bill

 

[Tsaico]

Awesome, I never knew that... I presume that back up check is for the microsoft back up program? Can that be used by other back utilities?

 

[bsobel]

Most backup programs that support an 'incremental' backup use the attribute bits to do so.
Bill