W2K File comment

[Marty L. Williams]

Is there a way to tell LabView 6.1 to preserve any file comment that
exist when saving a file? Current behavior seems to ignore a files
extend attributes.

Ta...
Marty L. Williams

[Randy_H]

Marty,

Can you expand upon this please? Do you mean with source code control or revision history? Thank you.

Randy Hoskin
Applications Engineer
National Instruments
http://www.ni.com/ask

[Mache]

Marty,

Are you using FAT or NTFS file System with W2K. I believe W2K can be installed either ways. THe FAT file system does not support EA's. At least directly. There are work arounds etc.

Please check and elaborate a little furthur.

Regards,

Mache

[Marty L. Williams]

Randy;

I mean just saving a file. I open a vi, modify it then save it. If there
was a W2K file comment (goto properties for file from Window's Explorer,
select Summary to view/edit the file comment) it now is gone. The
comment is blank.

Currently I save my comments in a text file, then after saving a vi from
LabView I paste the comment back into the properties of the file.

Ta...
Marty L. Williams

Randy H wrote:
> Marty,
>
> Can you expand upon this please? Do you mean with source code control
> or revision history? Thank you.
>
> Randy Hoskin
> Applications Engineer
> National Instruments
> http://www.ni.com/ask

[Marty L. Williams]

Mache;

I am using NTFS. See reply to previous post for elaboration.

Ta...
Marty L. Williams

Mache wrote:
> Marty,
>
> Are you using FAT or NTFS file System with W2K. I believe W2K can be
> installed either ways. THe FAT file system does not support EA's. At
> least directly. There are work arounds etc.
>
> Please check and elaborate a little furthur.
>
> Regards,
>
> Mache

[Mache]

Hi Marty,

I am at Loss Why the Comment Field under File->Properties->Summary Tab gets deleted.

To give a little Background...

The Summary Tab Under W2K NTFS file system is created Using a feature called "Alternate Data Stream" (ADS) of the NTFS file system. With this feature you can embed a file within a file. To do this any Program must be ADS aware. Microsoft Office Products are...

Check
http://www.microsoft.com/msj/defaultframe.asp?page=/msj/1198/ntfs/ntfs.htm&nav=/msj/1198/newnav.htm

As far as I know LV does not Exploit any of the features of NTFS. This is according to NI Knowledge base. So My Guess - and I should refrain from guessing, But Will anyway - is LV is not ADS Aware and cannot access or change this information. Now the Puzzle.. How did this Information get there in the first Place? There are Known vulnerabilities of the ADS feature. Did some one create these ADS streams under Summary Tab? I am at loss...

Check
http://patriot.net/~carvdawg/docs/dark_side.html

Now I believe If you have Information in the form of ADS in a file - This information cannot be easily accessed unless you know the Tag for the Stream. This information can be deleted by using following methods.

1. Moving the File to FAT Partition and Back.
2. Using the W2K DOS Prompt.(Mind you not the Command Line) and using a few Commands from the Promt in a sequence.
3. Physically Deleting the file.

So In your Case I am Not Sure Why this Information is Lost, because if LV is unaware of ADS there is no way it should be modified unless...

"When LV saves the VI, it holds the Modified VI in temporary file. Deletes the original file and it with the modified file....." I do not Know How LV saves the VI so this is conjecture.

Anyway I am using a FAT32 file System and I do not even have a summary tab under file Properties for any of the VI's. The ADS feature had some vulnerabilities and makes your system less secure.

To Learn more Just type "NTFS Alternate Data Stream" at www.Google.com

I would like to see what NI has to say about this.

Good Luck!!

Mache

PS: Why not use the Native LV VI Properties Feature to Store your Comments? You can also activate the Comment box to Come up to add new comments by going into Options Menu.

[Randy_H]

Marty,

Unfortunately, this is a problem on any NTFS file system and the way LabVIEW saves data. The VI is actually saved in your temp directory first, then copied over the original. This way, if the save messes up, we still have the original file. However, since we are copying over the original, not modifying it, we loose the properties.
R&D is working on a new saving mechanism for a future release of LabVIEW.

Randy Hoskin
Applications Engineer
National Instruments
http://www.ni.com/ask