[LMB] AKICOTL: Technical question OT:

[Mark Allums]

Peter H. Granzeau wrote:
> FAT32 predates XP by years.  Once again, keep in mind when  things 
> were developed.

But it is still in use.  Flash drives and memory cards come preformatted 
in it.

> I suppose the reason XP insists on FAT32 for external drives is that 
> external drives were much smaller in dose dem dere daze.

FAT was well-understood and was widely believed to be unencumbered by IP 
rights.  Which turns out not to be the case, but that's another topic. 
NTFS *is* proprietary, and somewhat of a mystery, since it is not well 
documented by Microsoft.  Programmers are expected to do things to files 
with high-level APIs, and only those are documented.  The underlying 
low-level stuff is solely left to Windows, and that's the way Microsoft 
wants it.  And, NTFS is encumbered by a patent or two and is off-limits 
to third parties, except for a few favored outfits.

--Mark Allums