Microsoft KB Archive/93604

= ISO 9660 Support for CD-ROM =

Article ID: 93604

Article Last Modified on 2/23/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Edition
 * Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server 3.1
 * Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.1
 * Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Developer Edition

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This article was previously published under Q93604



SUMMARY
Microsoft Windows NT supports ISO 9660 CD-ROM format, but it does not support any of the RockRidge CD-ROM format extensions. ISO 9660 is an international standard that defines a file system for compact discs. Almost all systems support ISO 9660.



MORE INFORMATION
ISO 9660 Level 1 is similar to the MS-DOS file system. Filenames are limited to eight single-case characters, a period, and a three-character extension. Filenames cannot contain special or extended characters, (no hyphens, tildes, equal signs, or plus signs). Filenames can contain only single-case letters, numbers, and underscores. Directory names cannot contain three-digit extensions; they can contain only eight single-case characters.

All alphabetic characters are in uppercase letters; some software maps these to lowercase letters. Either the filename or the extension may be empty, but not both (&quot;F.&quot; and &quot;.E&quot; are both legal filenames).

There is a &quot;file version number&quot; that can range from 1 to 32,767 and is separated from the extension by a semicolon. The file version number is ignored on many systems.

Subdirectories are allowed to nest up to eight levels deep.

ISO 9660 Level 2 allows longer filenames, up to 32 characters; however, most of the other restrictions still apply. Level 2 discs cannot be used on some systems, such as MS-DOS.

Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 support Level 3 and allow for fragmented files, which is needed to support finalized packet-written disks. CD-ROM File System (CDFS) also supports Joliet extensions, which allows for longer file names and Unicode names.

Rock Ridge is not supported in Windows NT or Windows 2000.

Additional query words: prodnt

Keywords: kbother KB93604

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