Using File and Print Services from a Windows client

Windows and UNIX filenames

One important difference between Windows and UNIX systems concerns filenames.

In Windows, filenames are case-insensitive, but case-preserving. For example, Windows treats foo and FOO as identical names -- you can't have files with these names in the same directory -- but remembers which characters were uppercase and which lowercase, and shows them appropriately.
On UNIX systems, filenames are case-sensitive. You can have files called foo and FOO in the same directory.

Also, Windows for Workgroups filenames are restricted to ``8.3'' format -- up to 8 alphanumeric characters, optionally followed by a dot and an extension of up to 3 alphanumeric characters. UNIX systems don't have this restriction. Windows 95 and Windows NT allow filenames of any length, but they're still case-insensitive.

To ensure that all UNIX files in a directory can be accessed from Windows, the VisionFS server reports different names for some files -- the files that Windows wouldn't be able to tell apart. VisionFS adds a unique suffix to these filenames on Windows, but the real UNIX filenames haven't changed.