Alias said:
Hello,
My host computer's file system is FAT32, while the client machines file
system is NTFS. Can this be the reason I cannot set individual file
permissions for users across the network?
Correct. FAT32 has no security capabilities.
I read somewhere that to be able to take advantage of extra resource sharing
security features offered in WinXP my drive must be formatted as NTFS. Is
this true?
Yes. Personally, I wouldn't even consider using FAT32 when NTFS is an
option. FAT32 has no security capabilities, no compression
capabilities, no fault tolerance, and a lot of wasted hard drive space
on volumes larger than 8 Gb in size. But your computing needs may vary,
and there is no hard and fast answer.
To answer your questions without getting too technical is
difficult, but has been handled quite well by Alex Nichol in the
article here:
FAT & NTFS File Systems in Windows XP
http://www.aumha.org/a/ntfs.htm
Somewhat more technical information is here:
Limitations of the FAT32 File System in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=kb;en-us;Q314463
Choosing Between File Systems
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...prodtechnol/winntas/tips/techrep/filesyst.asp
NTFS file system
http://www.digit-life.com/articles/ntfs/
If true, then can I change my FAT32 drive to NTFS without destroying data?
You can safely convert your current hard drive to NTFS whenever
desired, without having to format the partition and reinstall
everything. As always when performing any serious changes, back up any
important data before proceeding, just in case. A little advance
preparation is also strongly recommended, so you can avoid any
performance hits caused by the default cluster size:
Converting FAT32 to NTFS in Windows
http://www.aumha.org/a/ntfscvt.htm
--
Bruce Chambers
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