If you’re running a dual-boot linux windows machine, there’s a pretty big chance you’ve come to a point when you’ve wanted access to certain files in the opposite OS’s partition. Granted, if you’re in linux, getting at NTFS partitions is easy enough (and if it’s not, you can find any number of resources to get you there), but the other-way-around isn’t nearly as easy (at least to find).
Ext2 IFS (Installable File System for Windows) is a freeware tool that allows you full read and write access to your Ext2/Ext3 file systems from within Windows (NT, 2000, XP, and 2003). According to their FAQ:
What features are supported?
- Complete reading and writing access to files and directories of volumes with the Ext2 or Ext3 file system.
- Supports features which are specific to the I/O-system of Windows: Byte Range Locks, Directory Notfication (so the Explorer updates the view of a directory on changes within that directory), Oplocks (so SMB clients are able to cache the content of files).
- Allows Windows to run with paging files on Ext2 volumes.
What features are *not* supported?
- Access rights are not maintained. All users can access all the directories and files of an Ext2 volume. If a new file or directory is created, it inherits all the permissions, the GID and the UID from the directory where it has been created. With version 1.10a of the software there is one exception to this rule: a file (but not a directory) the driver has created always has cleared “x” permissions, it inherits the “r” and the “w” permissions only. See also section “What limitations arise from not maintaining access rights?”.
- The driver treats files which have got a file name beginning with a dot “.” character like other files, but not as hidden files.
- The driver does not allow accessing special files at Ext2 volumes, the access will be always denied. (Special files are sockets, soft links, block devices, character devices and pipes.)
- Neither different code pages nor UTF-8 encoded file names are supported. The driver always uses the current code page of Windows.
- Alternate 8.3-DOS names are not supported (just because there is no place to store them in an Ext2 file system). This can prevent legacy DOS applications, executed by the NTVDM of Windows, from accessing some files or directories.
- Currently the driver does not implement defragging support. So defragmentation applications will neither show fragmentation information nor defragment any Ext2 volume.
- This software does not achieve booting a Windows operating system from an Ext2 volume.
- LVM volumes are not supported, so it is not possible to access them.
Though it doesn’t give you the ability to run Windows natively on an Ext partition, it can be very useful when you actually need to access that one song in your Amarok library that you just need to hear.
