File extension Details of MANIFEST, MDMP, MKEXT, MFL, MFT, MLB, MOB, MOD, MOD

Microsoft Windows

Company / developer:
  Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a family of operating systems by Microsoft. They can run on several types of platforms such as servers, embedded devices and, most typically, on personal computers. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing trend of graphical user interfaces (GUI) popularized by the Macintosh. Microsoft Windows eventually came to dominate the world's personal computer market.

Microsoft Office

Company / developer:
  Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft Office

To make it easy to get the features and capabilities that will help your organization meet its challenges, Microsoft offers a variety of Office suites to address a diverse range of needs. Whether you are a home user or work for a multinational corporation, the 2007 Microsoft Office system has a suite to help you and your organization work more effectively.

Mac OS X

Company / developer:
  Apple, Inc.

Introduction to Mac OS X

Ever wonder why people get so attached to their Mac? Think Mac OS X. At the core of every Mac, Mac OS X is what makes your digital life more simple, more productive, and just plain fun.

It’s easy.

Mac OS X is a celebration of simplicity and common sense. No complicated menus. No obscure commands. Most tasks can be accomplished with just a click or two. And if you ever need guidance, there’s a built-in help system to light the way. Oh, one more thing: Mac OS X is simply breathtaking — and easy to personalize with desktop pictures and screen savers.

It’s advanced.

Making amazing things simple takes seriously advanced technology. Mac OS X is built on a rock-solid UNIX foundation, delivers true 64-bit performance, and incorporates industry-leading animated graphics. The beauty is, you don’t have to know what one word of that means — just start up your Mac and enjoy it.

It’s amazing.

More than an operating system, Mac OS X is a collection of very cool applications. It comes with everything you need to surf the web, send beautifully designed email, video chat, and organize your personal information.

It’s secure.

In a world where PCs constantly do battle with viruses and malware, Mac OS X is a sea of tranquility. Just go about your business and Mac OS X minds the fortress. Your documents are safe even if you share your Mac with others, and you can keep your kids safe by using a rich set of parental controls.

It’s compatible.

It’s a big world out there, and Mac OS X fits in perfectly. It runs Microsoft Office. It has built-in drivers for cameras, printers, and external drives. It plugs right into a PC network. And in case there’s a PC application you can’t live without, Mac computers can even run Windows. Mac OS X is compatible with everything — most of all, you.

Windows XP Professional

Company / developer:
  Microsoft Corporation

Windows XP Professional

The two major editions are Windows XP Home Edition, designed for home users, and Windows XP Professional, designed for business and power-users. XP Professional contains advanced features that the average home user would not use. However, these features are not necessarily missing from XP Home. They are simply disabled, but are there and can become functional. These releases were made available at retail outlets that sell computer software, and were pre-installed on computers sold by major computer manufacturers. As of mid-2008, both editions continue to be sold. A third edition, called Windows XP Media Center Edition was introduced in 2002 and was updated every year until 2006 to incorporate new digital media, broadcast television and Media Center Extender capabilities. Unlike the Home and Professional edition, it was never made available for retail purchase, and was typically either sold through OEM channels, or was pre-installed on computers that were typically marketed as "media center PCs".

When any file or directory is created on the NTFS volume, a record is created for it within the MFT. The size of each record in the MFT seems to be a matter of some controversy; the best that I can tell is that each record is equal to the cluster size of the volume, but with a minimum of 1,024 bytes and a maximum of 4,096. (Meaning that even if 512 byte clusters are used, each MFT record is still 1,024 bytes, and even if clusters greater than 4,096 bytes are used, each MFT record is limited to 4,096 bytes.) However, some sources say that the size of each MFT record is fixed at either 1,024 or 2,048 bytes.

The system uses these MFT records to store information about the file or directory; this information takes the form of attributes. Since the size of each MFT record is limited, there are different ways that NTFS can store a file's attributes: as either resident attributes that are stored within the MFT record, or non-resident attributes, stored either in additional MFT records or in extents that lie outside the MFT.

Remember that under NTFS, there is no special distinction between the data in a file and the attributes that describe the file. This has an interesting implication for small files. If the amount of space required for all of the attributes of a file, including the data it contains, is smaller than the size of the MFT record, the data attribute will be stored resident - within the MFT record itself. Thus, such files require no additional storage space on the volume, and also do not require separate accesses to the disk to check the MFT and then read the file, which improves performance.

Larger files get more complicated. As additional attributes are added to a file and as the existing attributes are expanded in size, they may no longer fit into the MFT record for the file. If this occurs, the attributes will be moved out of the MFT and be made non-resident by the file system. Large files will have their data stored as external attributes, and very large files may even get so large that the attributes containing pointers to the file data become external attributes themselves! I discuss this nested structuring of files on the page describing NTFS files and data storage.

As more files and directories are added to the file system, it becomes necessary for NTFS to add more records to the MFT. Since keeping the MFT contiguous on the disk improves performance, when an NTFS volume is first set up, the operating system reserves about 12.5% of the disk space immediately following the MFT; this is sometimes called the "MFT Zone". This is a substantial chunk of real estate to reserve, but bear in mind that it is still usable. Regular files and directories will not use this space until and unless the rest of the disk volume space is consumed, but if that occurs, the "MFT Zone" will be used. Eventually, if there are enough entries placed in the MFT, as it expands it will use up the "MFT Zone". When this happens, the operating system will automatically allocate more space elsewhere on the disk for the MFT. This allows the MFT to grow to a size limited only by the size of the volume, but this fragmentation of the MFT may reduce performance by increasing the number of reads required for some files, and the MFT cannot generally be defragmented.

Note: The first sixteen records in the MFT are always reserved for the volume's metadata files.

Microsoft Windows

Company / developer:
  Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a family of operating systems by Microsoft. They can run on several types of platforms such as servers, embedded devices and, most typically, on personal computers. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing trend of graphical user interfaces (GUI) popularized by the Macintosh. Microsoft Windows eventually came to dominate the world's personal computer market.

Windows Mobile

Company / developer:
  Microsoft Corporation

Windows Mobile

Windows Mobile is a compact operating system combined with a suite of basic applications for mobile devices based on the Microsoft Win32 API. Devices that run Windows Mobile include Pocket PCs, Smartphones, Portable Media Centers, and on-board computers for certain automobiles. It is designed to be somewhat similar to desktop versions of Windows, feature-wise and aesthetically. Additionally, third-party software development is available for Windows Mobile. Originally appearing as the Pocket PC 2000 operating system, Windows Mobile has been updated several times, with the current version being Windows Mobile 6.1, and a new release scheduled for 2010. Microsoft projected in 2008 that shipments of devices with Windows Mobile will increase from 11 million to 20 million units. Microsoft licenses Windows Mobile to four out of the five world's largest mobile phone manufacturers, with Nokia being the other.

Microsoft Windows

Company / developer:
  Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a family of operating systems by Microsoft. They can run on several types of platforms such as servers, embedded devices and, most typically, on personal computers. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing trend of graphical user interfaces (GUI) popularized by the Macintosh. Microsoft Windows eventually came to dominate the world's personal computer market.

Microsoft Windows

Company / developer:
  Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a family of operating systems by Microsoft. They can run on several types of platforms such as servers, embedded devices and, most typically, on personal computers. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing trend of graphical user interfaces (GUI) popularized by the Macintosh. Microsoft Windows eventually came to dominate the world's personal computer market.

Microsoft Windows

Company / developer:
  Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a family of operating systems by Microsoft. They can run on several types of platforms such as servers, embedded devices and, most typically, on personal computers. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing trend of graphical user interfaces (GUI) popularized by the Macintosh. Microsoft Windows eventually came to dominate the world's personal computer market.

MS-DOS

Company / developer:
  Microsoft Corporation

MS-DOS (short for Microsoft Disk Operating System) is an operating system commercialized by Microsoft. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems and was the dominant operating system for computers during the 1980s. It was based on the Intel 8086 family of microprocessors, particularly the IBM PC and compatibles. It was gradually replaced on consumer desktop computers by operating systems offering a graphical user interface (GUI), in particular by various generations of the Microsoft Windows operating system. It was originally known as QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) and 86-DOS.

MS-DOS was originally released in 1981 and had eight major versions released before Microsoft stopped development in 2000. It was the key product in Microsoft's growth from a programming languages company to a diverse software development firm, providing the company with essential revenue and marketing resources. It was also the underlying basic operating system on which early versions of Windows ran as a GUI.