multiple stream files supported?

sysyphus · Post by **sysyphus** » 2002 Dec 13, 15:42

(apologies if this has been covered previously)

Is there any plan to add the ability to view multiple stream files properly (NTFS resource-fork type files)? Showing the true size and maybe the names of the resources: Eg if I have a file called "list" with the data fork containing 100k in a resource called "hidden", the file might appear in the directory as:

---name----------size----
list................ 0k
list:hidden... 100k

Or is there a way to do this with the current program?

Failing that does anyone know of a way to do this in explorer?

Regards,

Sysyphus

Post by **nikos** » 2002 Dec 13, 16:48

ntfs parallel streams can lead to many "party tricks" since you can place a file that shows "0" bytes on your friend's computer whereas in fact it has 10GB stored secretly in a secondary stream -- how we all laughed!

it's quite hard getting hold of that info though. I know 2x will correctly copy all parallel streams of a file, if the target supports NTFS. I also know that winRAR is a packer that correctly zips parallel streams, so i guess you could use it as an indicator of whether some file has such streams or not

for smarter measures i'll have to think something for xplorer2, perhaps an extra column that shows the hidden size of the file

sysyphus · Post by **sysyphus** » 2003 Mar 15, 07:02

nikos wrote:for smarter measures i'll have to think something for xplorer2, perhaps an extra column that shows the hidden size of the file

that would be cool

RockyRich · Post by **RockyRich** » 2003 Mar 31, 07:59

nikos wrote:...it's quite hard getting hold of that info though. I know 2x will correctly copy all parallel streams of a file, if the target supports NTFS. I also know that winRAR is a packer that correctly zips parallel streams, so i guess you could use it as an indicator of whether some file has such streams or not

for smarter measures i'll have to think something for xplorer2, perhaps an extra column that shows the hidden size of the file

You might want to visit the SysInternals Miscellaneous Tools page and look at the Streams utility. It reveals the non-default streams hiding on NTFS volumes using an undocumented (how

shocking!) native NTFS function. It is freeware, and full source code is included.

Post by **nikos** » 2003 Mar 31, 11:34

thanks for that
there are documented ways to access streams, too
the question is how can stream management be incorporated in x2
i was thinking of a simple column with total stream size
but perhaps commands to view/modify specific stream contents would be more useful

any ideas welcome