Adding to Windows file summaries

[im5150too]

In scanning several hundred family pictures, (so far!), my plan was to
take any handwritten notes from the back of photos and insert them
into the summary section you get to through properties. On some it
works fine, but others, from the same batch scans, give me an error
message that the file might be in use, or that it might be marked read
only, and won't let me add information to it. The read only box is
not checked, and the file shouldn't be in use.

What gives??? Anybody have any ideas?

As always, Thank you in advance. This family project would not have
gotten off the ground without help from folks here!

 

[Dances With Crows]

In scanning several hundred family pictures, (so far!), my plan was to
take any handwritten notes from the back of photos and insert them
into the summary section you get to through properties.

This isn't a good idea. I'll try to explain why, but it's technical.

NTFS (the native filesystem for 'DozeNT, 2K, and XP) can store what are
called "alternate data streams" for files or directories. The
information you enter into the Properties->Summary is stored in these
alternate data streams. It is possible, but not easy, to transfer these
alternate data streams to a non-NTFS file system, since only NTFS and
ReiserFS 4 really support alternate data streams. FAT32 (used on
'Doze9x and most removable media like ZIP and floppy disks) doesn't
support streams. HFS+ (MacOS native filesystem) doesn't either.[0]
ISO9660 and UDF (filesystems used on CDs and DVDs) don't. UFS, ext2,
ext3, and ReiserFS 3.6 (Unix/Linux filesystems) don't.

So the information you've entered into these Summary data streams is
going to be a pain to back up to CD, DVD, or removable media[1], and
practically impossible to transfer over the wide Net. (Local transfer
over SMB will probably work, though.)

It'd be much easier if you created a file for each image (or one file
for all the images, or something...) that had this summary information
in plain ASCII text. Then you could write a quick Perl script or
something to get the information you needed without worrying about the
underlying filesystem.

but others, from the same batch scans, give me an error message that
the file might be in use, or that it might be marked read only, and
won't let me add information to it. The read only box is not checked,
and the file shouldn't be in use.

This is partially Windows being stupid and partially the fault of
whatever else you've got running. Applications don't always close files
they're using or exit directories that they should exit. Under Windows
(unlike Unix) it's impossible to unlink() a file that's open, and
writing to a file that's open will always fail if the process that
opened the file first used _SH_DENYWR in the flags. Many applications
do that so their files remain consistent.

I don't know if there's an equivalent to "lsof" for Windows. lsof is a
Unix utility that shows all open files and which process has opened the
files. http://www.sysinternals.com/ doesn't list anything like lsof.
Oh well, HTH anyway, and store that summary information in plain text!


[0] HFS+ allows each file to have a resource fork and a data fork.
That's it.

[1] Tape backup is still an option, though. NTBACKUP.EXE can handle
alternate data streams. If you're a typical home user, though, you
don't have a tape drive.

 

[im5150too]

In scanning several hundred family pictures, (so far!), my plan was to
take any handwritten notes from the back of photos and insert them
into the summary section you get to through properties.

This isn't a good idea. I'll try to explain why, but it's technical.

NTFS (the native filesystem for 'DozeNT, 2K, and XP) can store what are
called "alternate data streams" for files or directories. The
information you enter into the Properties->Summary is stored in these
alternate data streams. It is possible, but not easy, to transfer these
alternate data streams to a non-NTFS file system, since only NTFS and
ReiserFS 4 really support alternate data streams. FAT32 (used on
'Doze9x and most removable media like ZIP and floppy disks) doesn't
support streams. HFS+ (MacOS native filesystem) doesn't either.[0]
ISO9660 and UDF (filesystems used on CDs and DVDs) don't. UFS, ext2,
ext3, and ReiserFS 3.6 (Unix/Linux filesystems) don't.

So the information you've entered into these Summary data streams is
going to be a pain to back up to CD, DVD, or removable media[1], and
practically impossible to transfer over the wide Net. (Local transfer
over SMB will probably work, though.)

It'd be much easier if you created a file for each image (or one file
for all the images, or something...) that had this summary information
in plain ASCII text. Then you could write a quick Perl script or
something to get the information you needed without worrying about the
underlying filesystem.

but others, from the same batch scans, give me an error message that
the file might be in use, or that it might be marked read only, and
won't let me add information to it. The read only box is not checked,
and the file shouldn't be in use.

This is partially Windows being stupid and partially the fault of
whatever else you've got running. Applications don't always close files
they're using or exit directories that they should exit. Under Windows
(unlike Unix) it's impossible to unlink() a file that's open, and
writing to a file that's open will always fail if the process that
opened the file first used _SH_DENYWR in the flags. Many applications
do that so their files remain consistent.

I don't know if there's an equivalent to "lsof" for Windows. lsof is a
Unix utility that shows all open files and which process has opened the
files. http://www.sysinternals.com/ doesn't list anything like lsof.
Oh well, HTH anyway, and store that summary information in plain text!


[0] HFS+ allows each file to have a resource fork and a data fork.
That's it.

[1] Tape backup is still an option, though. NTBACKUP.EXE can handle
alternate data streams. If you're a typical home user, though, you
don't have a tape drive.

Thanks for explaining that one to me. I do have a couple of tape back
up machines, but the idea is to make Cd's and Dvd's for the family, so
it looks like I'll just put as much in the file name as I can.
Thanks,
Don

 

[Hecate]

I don't know if there's an equivalent to "lsof" for Windows. lsof is a
Unix utility that shows all open files and which process has opened the
files. http://www.sysinternals.com/ doesn't list anything like lsof.
Oh well, HTH anyway, and store that summary information in plain text!

Task Manager.
And actually there is something on sysinternals:

www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml

Gets you Process Explorer.

 

[Dances With Crows]

Thanks for explaining that one to me. I do have a couple of tape back
up machines, but the idea is to make Cd's and Dvd's for the family, so
it looks like I'll just put as much in the file name as I can.

This may not work either. If you use Joliet extensions on the ISO9660
CDs, each filename can be at most 64 Unicode characters long, 103
Unicode characters if you use whatever the 'Doze equivalent of
-joliet-long is (breaks Joliet standard but appears to work--use with
cauton.) I expect that handwritten notes on the backs of photos would
exceed 103 characters in a lot of cases.

If you don't like plain text files, go HTML instead. Keep the scanned
TIFFs, run ImageMagick or something in batch mode to convert each TIFF
into a 640x480 JPEG, gin up an HTML file like so:

<html><head><title>Pictures 1966-1976</title></head>
<body>
<h1 align=center>Pictures 1966-1976</h1>

<img src="jpegs/picture001.jpg" width=640 height=480>
<p> This is Bob at the old place on Turtleback Lane. Note the Edsel in
the background. </p>

<img src="jpegs/picture002.jpg" width=640 height=480>
<p> The view from the back window of the old place. The swamp was
replaced with a 20-screen cinema in 1992. </p>

<!-- more stuff -->

</body></html>

....Then you've got easy access to all the notes, right beneath the
low-res versions of the images, and even a total luser can open an HTML
file on a modern machine and look at it. HTH,

 

[Dances With Crows]

Task Manager.

....is like "top" with a partially-working hook into "kill -9", not
"lsof".

And actually there is something on sysinternals:
www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml
Gets you Process Explorer.

Yeah, that's more like the right thing, but it's a lot more work to get
the open file information out of a tree list than it is with "lsof -p
$PID".