David said:
Does XP have a maximum number of files allowed in the root
directory? If so, does anyone know what that number is
and what can happen if one tries to exceed it?
It depends on the file system, not the OS. Under the FAT16 file
system, the root directory is limited to 512 entries. Each file or
subdirectory takes from one to thirteen directory entries, depending
on the length of the name, so it's easy to fill that limit before you
realize it. Once you fill it, you can't put anything else into the
root directory until you delete something from it, or move something
from it to a subdirectory. You'll still be able to save into
subdirectories.
In FAT32 the root directory is handled like other directories. That
means that the limit goes way up to about 65,000 entries. That's much
harder to fill up, but it can still be done.
In NTFS, there's no limit to the size of any directory, including
root.
