CODEWITHSUNDEEP
windowsfilesystems
user152949
user152949

Reputation:

Open Windows file using unique ID

Is it possible to access a file in Windows Explorer or MS-DOS using the unique file ID only? I was thinking that I could type in something like {FILE_ID.VOLUME} ex. {2319237819273897.1} and the file c:\temp\myfile.txt would open. This feature could be useful to access a file that has been moved to a different directory as the unique file ID remains the same after the file has moved (even multiple times), and remains the same until the file is deleted.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 3929

Answers (1)

Eugene Mayevski 'Callback
Eugene Mayevski 'Callback

Reputation: 46040

This depends on the filesystem. FAT doesn't have file IDs, but in Windows low-level API there are mechanisms to open the file by its unique ID. It is up to the filesystem driver how to treat this ID -- FAT generates the ID dynamically, while NTFS works with unique file IDs in some way (I don't know the details though).

File ID support has been added to Windows for compatibility with certain Unix stuff and this is not a widely used feature. I don't know if you can use it via Win32 API (and so from Explorer).

Update: Thanks to Harry Johnston in the comments now I know that you can open the file using OpenFileById WinAPI function which appeared in Vista.

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions