Posts Tagged ‘Windows’

This is high on the PC geek scale, but something I find that many people who consider themselves computer geeks have never heard of. I’m going to be talking briefly about Alternate Data Streams(ADS). First off, let’s discuss what it is. ADS is an undocumented feature of the NTFS file system used by Microsoft operating systems, including XP and Vista. It was added originally for compatibility to a Mac file system called HFS. Windows’ files use the file extension to determine the file type. This older Mac file system used a file within a file system to determine file type. ADS was added as a means to deal with the different processes.

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