fsutil 8dot3name: the files strip silently skips
Every file created on an NTFS volume with 8.3 name creation left on gets two names, not one. There is the long…
NTFS
fsutil in Windows: volume, file and sparse file operations
Most administrators meet fsutil exactly once, in a forum answer that says to run fsutil hardlink list or fsutil dirty query, and…
chkdsk in Windows: what each switch does, and when not to run it
Most of what administrators know about chkdsk was true in 2005. Run it with /f /r, reboot, watch a progress percentage for…
takeown in Windows: take ownership of files and folders safely
Administrator rights do not grant access to a file. They grant the ability to take ownership of it, and ownership is what…
ICACLS command in Windows
NTFS permissions control who can read, write, and execute files and folders on Windows. icacls is the command-line tool for viewing and…
NTFS links on Windows: symbolic links, junctions, and hard links compared
Windows supports three distinct types of filesystem links: symbolic links, directory junctions, and hard links. They look similar from the outside but…
chkntfs in Windows: control the boot-time disk check
A machine reboots and Windows starts checking a volume for errors before the desktop appears. On a workstation that is an inconvenience.…
attrib command in Windows: view and change file attributes
The attrib command has been part of Windows since the DOS era, but it still solves problems that modern GUI tools handle…