In article , Mayayana
wrote:


| a given file might have only a data fork, only a resource fork or both,
| depending on the purpose of the file.
|
| microsoft copied the idea, adding multiple forks to ntfs, known as
| alternate data streams.
|

Actually MS came up with the ill-fated, bad idea of
ADS to help accomodate MS Office to Macs.

nope. microsoft copied the mac resource fork concept, extending it to
an arbitrary number of forks, versus just two for classic mac os.

Later they
did some dumb things like using them to store metadata.
But whaddayaknow.... it turned out the metadata was
lost if the file was moved from an NTFS file system.

only if it was moved improperly. there are ways to preserve that data.

(Actually that's a handy way to clean ADS. Move them
to a FAT32 partition.)

only if you don't mind data loss.

| You don't need to "open" a file to see what type it is, in
| the sense that you don't have to run it.
|
| but you do have to open the file and read the info in the header,
| making it a costly operation just to find out what type of file it is.
|

There's nothing "costly" about opening a file in
a hex editor. HxD uses about 8 MB of RAM. Pale
Moon, by contrast, is costing me 100+- MB just
to sit there.

opening a file is a more costly operation than simply checking its
entry in the file system and obtaining the relevant data.

put simply: a one-step process versus two-step process.

| The hex editor
| HxD is free and very good. You can put an Open With HxD
| on your right-click menu and look at the file bytes to
| see what it is.
|
| you're going to do that for every single file?

I do it when I need to. Not a big deal. We're
talking about scenarios where the file type is
unknown. I don't find that happens very often.

If you don't know what to do with "every
single file" then even MacOS handholding
won't help.

completely missing the point and resorting to your usual ignorant
derogatory remarks.