I got this one very novice question and hope some one can give me a answer? All programs, that can run on fat32, can run on NTFS. TRUE?? I'm asking this because somehow all the computer in my company are using fat32 and I am planing to have them all convert to NTFS. From my own experience, I know all programs can run on fat32 and NTFS (except those old DOS things). I am just wondering if there is a windows based program that can only run on fat32, not on NTFS. any help will be appreciated! Thanks! Hi, everyone ^_^

"...the programs written for FAT16 and FAT32 in Windows 9x and ME simply won't see the drive." Absolutely wrong! Excluding specific applications that access *directly*, i.e. using low level calls to the operating system, the sectors, even legacy FAT16 DOS programs run fine with NTFS. I have a lot of legacy DOS 3.30 applications still running fine under Windows 2K/XP NTFS systems (and the opposite would be catastrophic for my business).

Go for it ... as long as you understand the two known post-conversion issues that may or may not matter to you ... 1. File security issues after converting FAT32 partitions to NTFS file system 2. Default cluster size BTW - the above issues do not exist on default NTFS drive/partitions - only on converted file systems. i_XpUser

"...the programs written for FAT16 and FAT32 in Windows 9x and ME simply won't see the drive." About as wrong as it is possible to be. It is the Operating System that is the deciding factor. The File system the application was originally written under has absolutely nothing at all to do with anything. I am using a DOS application writtin in 1990 under Windows XP and NTFS files system. The only problem is it gets confused with disk free space because Giga Byte hard disks didnt exist in 1990. Stuart

I am assuming you are converting the partitions for security reasons. Just bear in mind that the directory- and file-level restrictions that are introduced can definitely impact whether or not some applications run correctly (i.e. they may have "Access Denied" errors or not even report them at all.) Lots of legacy apps (including Win32 apps!) do not consider security settings at all and could very well require local admin privileges, or may even require the user to log in as Administrator in some obscure cases. Yes, I have seen such oddball scenarios myself in a previous job. Just make sure you have some test machines set up before you roll out the changes, to be on the safe side (if it is not already obvious.) Of course if everyone is running as local admins, then it's not as much of an issue (and would defeat the purpose of the conversion anyway.) In summary, it is true that the file system itself should matter very little, but what several posters in this thread are forgetting is the very added features that NTFS introduces can potentially get in the way of applications that appeared to work perfectly fine in the past.

..the very added features that NTFS introduces can potentially get in the way of applications that appeared to work perfectly fine in the past. Care to exemplify? i_XpUser

Glitchman: You point out my problem. Some of the softwares used in my company are required the local administrator privilege. For this reason, the previous MIS gave out the local administrator privilege to every one. Now I am trying to revoke the privilege from normal user and just give them the permission to specific files/folders so those softwares can work properly. Hi, everyone ^_^