Hey folks,

Is there a way to get the file system format type from a UNC path? We have
an app that's using alternate data streams for storing thumbnails, and we'd
like to be able to check in advance for non-NTFS file systems (which don't
support ADS). "DriveInfo" has a "DriveFormat" property, but DriveInfo seems
to be limited to letter-mapped drives.

Thanks,
Bill

Well, on second look, getting the drive format may not matter. I mapped a
drive letter to a Samba file share UNC address on a Solaris box.
DriveInfo.DriveFormat on the mapped letter returned "NTFS", but it appears
that the volume still does not support alternate data streams. (In theory,
is an NTFS volume actually required to support ADS streams, or is that an
optional feature... or is this a Samba bug?)

Thanks.


"linearred" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hey folks,
>
> Is there a way to get the file system format type from a UNC path? We
> have an app that's using alternate data streams for storing thumbnails,
> and we'd like to be able to check in advance for non-NTFS file systems
> (which don't support ADS). "DriveInfo" has a "DriveFormat" property, but
> DriveInfo seems to be limited to letter-mapped drives.
>
> Thanks,
> Bill
>

Thanks for the tips, Pete.

FYI, alternate data streams do work on at least one other enterprise level
Windows network share I've tested in our network, so it doesn't seem to be a
Windows networking issue per se.

>
> My own guess is that you can't depend on a networked volume supporting
> NTFS-specific features over that connection, and in fact it may be that
> it's simply something that's completely unsupported on Windows networking,
> never mind Samba. I'm not even sure that using native Windows-to-Windows
> SMB networking, it would be supported (but then again, I'm not the expert
> you're looking for, so... ).
>
> Pete

Just to distinguish it from a desktop share. I don't kow what the company's
Windows file server farms are actually running on, or what the underlying
network connection actually is.

> Not that I would have any particular insight in this respect, but...when
> you write "enterprise level Windows network share", is that actually using
> SMB? Or perhaps some other file sharing implementation that supports
> ADS? If it's just using SMB (i.e. the built-in Windows networking) why do
> you describe it as "enterprise level"?
>
> Pete