NTFS

A Brief Overview Of NTFS
NTFS is an optional installable file system for Windows 2000. Here we will summarize what it is, what it can do for you and how to use it.

NTFS - A Primer

If you've used Windows 95/98 or MS-DOS then you are probably familiar with the FAT and FAT32 file systems used by those operating systems. Windows 2000 in addition to supporting FAT and FAT32 offers you an enhanced file system called NTFS. I the thought of file systems scares you, fear not. This is not a technical discussion but rather a brief introduction to the pros and cons of using NTFS.

NTFS is an acronym for New Technology File System. Earlier versions of NTFS are supported by Windows NT. We'll be talking here about NTFS version 5 that comes with Windows 2000.

NTFS looks and behaves very much like FAT & FAT32. The directory listings and file names look the same.

Here is a sample directory listing from a console (MS-DOS) window for illustration:

 Volume in drive H is DISK1_P3
 Volume Serial Number is 48BE-6171

 Directory of H:\NTFS

01/16/2000  02:38a      <DIR>          .
01/16/2000  02:38a      <DIR>          ..
01/13/2000  06:06p                 921 Example.txt
01/15/2000  11:34a              27,648 ln1.exe
               2 File(s)         28,569 bytes
               2 Dir(s)   7,866,372,096 bytes free

As you can see, there's no apparent difference. Here's a view of the same directory from Explorer:

Hopefully those illustrations will relieve any initial apprehensions you may have about using NTFS. What then are then benefits of NTFS? Well, it tends to be more efficient on today's large disk drives, but let's stay away from techie-talk. Let's talk instead about the practical advanced features of NTFS.

Content Summaries. OK, you've got your spiffy new computer with 20GB of disk space. You have thousands of file that you've created or your family or co-workers have created. You've tried to use descriptive file names for them but sometimes you still have to open many files to find that one particular file you are really interested in.

NTFS comes to the rescue. >From Explorer, right click on the file name then click on Properties from the popup submenu. Then select the Summary tab (see the illustration below). Here NTFS lets you enter a variety of information that makes identification of the file and its purpose much easier.

Privacy & Security. If you share your machine with family members or co-workers or others then you've probably wished at times that you could keep certain files private, hidden from the curiosity of others. Files such as spreadsheets, databases, inventory and financial transaction databases often contain confidential information that is best kept private. NTFS offers you that privacy and more. The Security tab of the Properties page for a file allows you to control read and write access to files and folders. You can tell Windows 2000 to allow only read access to certain users or groups of users, or just yourself for any given file.

You can control who can create files in folders; who can delete files; who can see which files are in a folder; who can write to (modify) a file and more. The above illustration shows the basic options available to you. You simply select the users or groups of users and assign the desired permissions. Clicking on the Advanced button gives you even more options and more access control.

By using access restrictions you not only ensure yourself of privacy but you can prevent someone from accidentally deleting or modifying your important documents.

Access controls also allow you to control who can run a program. If you don't want your young children running certain programs you just deny them Execute access to the program.

Compression & Encryption. NTFS also provides you with built-in on-the-fly compression or encryption of your files. Simply check a box in the Advanced Attributes property sheet and it's done!

Unlike the disk compression available to Windows 98 users, NTFS compression is done on a per file or per folder basis. That gives you the ability to compress only those folders and files that really need it such as large seldom used files or folders that are archives of older data.

Compression saves on disk space. Encryption grants security. Once you encrypt a file only you can read its contents. You may have seen shareware and commercial programs that allow you to encrypt files. The beauty of NTFS file encryption (and compression) is that it's totally transparent to you the user. There are no passwords to remember and no special programs to run to decrypt the file. NTFS uses its own built-in encryption algorithm to make sure that you and only you can read the encrypted data. All you do is log on to your Windows 2000 account and go about your work or play. Windows 2000 and NTFS does the rest for you. You have transparent access to your encrypted files while others do not. Simplicity and security.

This has been just a brief overview of some of the features of the NTFS file system available to Windows 2000 users. You can learn more about NTFS and Windows 2000 from the ClubWin and Microsoft websites.