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I recently came across this statement:

"...even WinXP does not completely implement the NTFS spec."

Is this true? If so, what is missing and should anyone even care? Or is this just specification stuff that just isn't (yet) needed?

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Where did you come across that statement? –  ChrisF Jan 5 '11 at 23:45
2nd comment here: superuser.com/questions/229563/… –  glenneroo Jan 5 '11 at 23:51
Here is a new feature in Windows 7 and NTFS...windows7hacker.com/index.php/2010/07/… –  Moab Jan 6 '11 at 0:25

2 Answers 2

up vote 4 down vote accepted


Windows Vista introduced Transactional NTFS, NTFS symbolic links, partition shrinking and self-healing functionality[8] though these features owe more to additional functionality of the operating system than the file system itself.

NTFS Versions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS#Versions

Not much on the version 6.0 used in Windows 7

The biggest change using NTFS is TxF, Transactional NTFS, started with Vista.

Video http://video.app.msn.com/watch/video/msdn-webcast-the-revolutionary-windows-vista-transactional-ntfs-txf-infrastructure/qm0s7fhr


MSDN Article http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163388.aspx


Another feature of TxF, explains when files suddenly go missing.


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The main thing to take away from this is that ntfs is still-evolving as a technology, and therefore of course not all versions of windows implement all the features. –  Joel Coehoorn Jan 6 '11 at 3:31
"though these features owe more to additional functionality of the operating system than the (NTFS) file system itself." –  Moab Jan 6 '11 at 15:19

The only things that are missing are features created and implemented after XP shipped, such as symlinks.

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