On Tuesday, January 7, 2003, at 10:28 AM, Shane Webster wrote: > Good morning all, > Has anyone got knowledge of these types of files ".DS_ ???". They > occur as a > duplicate file, on PC systems when connected to Macs. > > I am using the SMB function to connect to a PC network to drop files > onto > these machines. When I do drop a file over, a duplicate is created, > with the > prefix ".DS_". Theses file range in size dependant on the original > file and > seem to be semi-invisible (greyed out). > > Obviously the PC people don't know which file to use and are getting > frustrated. I have checked the apple site and can't get too much useful > information. > > Running 10.2.3 on G4 Mirrored Door. > >
For me, this is probably the single most annoying thing about MacOS X (the dreadful speed of copying files to an MS-DOS formatted device coming a very close second). I believe that the .DS_ files represent the resource forks of the copied Mac files, which of course are not handled by Windows. Why Apple have not included the removal of these files in the housekeeping routines of their MS-DOS support is a puzzle. To be fair, they've gone half way by putting a dot at the beginning of these files' names, thereby rendering them invisible in MacOS X, but this Unix convention is not recognised by Windows, which is where the problem really appears. BTW - it's not just a problem with networked PCs - it also happens with any MS-DOS formatted media, such as Zip Disks, Thumb Drives, etc. And it's a major pain, IMHO. It's possible to delete these files using the Terminal, or even the Finder if you have it set to see invisible files, but why should this have to be done manually at all? It's nice being able to publish calendars to the web, but it would be even nicer if fundamental issues like this could be addressed with a little more urgency. -- Peter Hinchliffe Apwin Computer Services FileMaker Pro Solutions Developer Perth, :::::::::::::::::::::::: Western Australia Phone (618) 9332 6482 Fax (618) 9332 0913 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Mac because I prefer it -- Windows because I have to. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
