File Systems Used by Windows - Essay Example

In a more generalized format, these are a set of non-figurative data types, put into practice to serve the purposes of storing, the formation of hierarchies, maneuvering, routing, admittance, and reclamation of data.The File System that is supported by nearly all the versions released of MS Windows is File Allocation Table (FAT). It was an advanced version of what MS used in Disk Operating System (DOS) – the operating system launched by MS prior to Windows. FAT included several features and had much more to offer to its customers through Windows than its previous versions did.

On a general note, many further features have been added to it making it a further enhanced file system; these features have been derived mainly from UNIX.The other file system used by Windows is Net Technology File System (NTFS), alongside the previously mentioned FAT system. FAT has a lengthy history against its name; its previous versions were known as FAT12 and FAT16 that had a number of constraints reducing the level of its performance. The first and the foremost major constraint was a limit on file name i.e. 8 characters, and then there was also a restriction on the extension characters utilized and that was 3 characters.

These two restrictions were bundled together by the name of 8.3 filename limit.Microsoft then introduced VFAT which was essentially an advanced version of both FATs i.e. FAT12 and FAT16 in the NT 3.5 version of Windows. This version was also a part of the Windows 95 version launched by MS; it essentially permitted the utilization of Long File Names (LFN). Another version of FAT introduced was FAT32; it did address a number of constraints that were present in 12 and 16 FATs respectively, but yet it had issues that needed repair work.