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Connections from other servers are handled differently than user connections. Learn to quickly configure remote connections for SQL Server 2008. ...

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We show you how to use the Get-MailboxStatistics cmdlet to view who last logged in to a mailbox, last logon date and time, and message count. ...

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Did you know you can use Windows 7 beta 1 to manage your Windows Server 2008 servers? Here's the download you'll need and an overview of the tools it includes. ...

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Think part of your database is missing or corrupted? Find out how you can perform a partial restore to recover the missing or corrupted data. ...

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Windows Vista offers built-in support for more control over screenshots. Find out what you can do with the Snipping Tool. ...

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Related Articles

Drivers fail, files get corrupted, disks crash--there are numerous uncontrollable reasons why Windows might fail. But all is not lost. Wes Miller explores the kinds of things that can go wrong in a Windows system, and explains how you can troubleshoot them to get your system working again.

Wes Miller

TechNet Magazine January 2009

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The Windows Automated Installation Kit was designed primarily for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. But did you know that it can also help you deploy Windows XP and Windows Server 2003? Here's what you need to know to get started.

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"Are you sure you want to remove this shared file?" Raymond Chen explains why an uninstaller may ask this question when you remove a program.

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TechNet Magazine April 2008

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Raymond Chen explains how a bit of diagnostic code unexpectedly brought the Windows 95 build to crawl.

Raymond Chen

TechNet Magazine September 2008

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Raymond Chen looks at the evolution of the Alt+Tab hotkey and how the Alt+Esc hotkey has remained unscathed.

Raymond Chen

TechNet Magazine March 2009

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Also by this Author

Raymond Chen explores how forcing file handles closed can lead to a series of cascading errors.

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TechNet Magazine April 2009

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Raymond Chen looks at the evolution of the Alt+Tab hotkey and how the Alt+Esc hotkey has remained unscathed.

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TechNet Magazine March 2009

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Raymond Chen explains why Windows can but chooses not to replace a file that is currently in use.

Raymond Chen

TechNet Magazine November 2008

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Raymond Chen discusses the intriguing backstory of how naming conventions for non-final releases have changed. And he gives a gentle plea for companies to take beta testing more seriously.

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TechNet Magazine March 2008

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Depending on your point of view, cached credentials can be both a blessing and a curse. Raymond Chen explains how they work and how you can control them.

Raymond Chen

TechNet Magazine July 2009

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Popular Articles

Greg Steen discusses recovering from system crashes with Replay RA - Recovery Accelerator, managing compressed archives with WinRAR, using TortoiseSVN to simplify source control, measuring disk I/O with Iometer, as well as rebooting servers remotely with the APC Switched Rack PDU, and looks at the book "Windows Group Policy: Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista".

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TechNet Magazine January 2009

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Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 introduce important changes to BitLocker, including support for data volumes and improved protection against cryptographic attacks. Byron Hynes explores the new features, demonstrates how to use BitLocker on a server, and discusses some of the recent media coverage affecting BitLocker.

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TechNet Magazine June 2008

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Project Server 2007 delivers significant enhancements, not only to the features and functionality for users but also for administrators. Alan Maddison explores some of the most significant new features and walks you through the installation and configuration of Microsoft Office Project Server 2007.

Alan Maddison

TechNet Magazine January 2009

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The new Group Policy Preferences feature found in Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista provides more than 3,000 settings, greatly expanding what administrators can do with Group Policy. Here’s a guide to using Group Policy Preferences to manage your environment.

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TechNet Magazine January 2009

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Without too much effort, you can deploy a terminal server to host the applications you need in your environment. But there are some important decisions you’ll need to make to ensure your implementation meets user expectations. Greg Shields discusses the various options you have and explains how they will affect you.

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TechNet Magazine January 2009

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Our Blog

NAP monitors the health of specified computers when they attempt to connect to a network and includes a number of mechanisms to enforce health requirements. In this article, Geek of All Trades Greg Shields gives readers an overview of these enforcement mechanisms and, as an example, takes a closer look at setting ...

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Use Windows PowerShell to Manage Virtual Machines Here are a few examples of how you can use Windows PowerShell scripts to manage virtual machines running on a Server Core installation. Note that these scripts are presented as samples and may need to be customized to work in your environment.

Create a New ...

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Disabling an Unused Part of Group Policy Objects One way to disable a policy is to disable an unused part of the GPO. By disabling part of a policy that isn’t used, the application of GPOs and security will be faster.

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In the August 2008 issue of TechNet Magazine, Paul Randal wrote an article Top Tips for Effective Database Maintenance.  It was geared toward "involuntary  DBAs" (IT pros who inadvertently wind up responsible for a SQL Server instance).  The article had a great response from our readers so Paul has written another ...

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Microsoft Forefront is designed to deliver an integrated security solution that makes it much easier to deploy and manage security across an organization’s IT infrastructure. In this, our annual security issue, we feature two articles that describe how Forefront Security protects instant messaging and e-mail.

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Windows Confidential Why are Shortcuts Files?
Raymond Chen


Shortcuts are files. Many people, however, think that shortcuts should have been handled differently. People have suggested that they should have been implemented as hard links, symbolic links, object tracking, or any number of other possibilities. So why was it decided that they would be files? To understand this, remember what the working constraints were back 10 or 12 years ago:
  1. The mechanism had to run on a machine with only 4MB of RAM.
  2. Shortcuts had to be supported on all file systems—especially FAT, since that was the only file system Windows® 95 supported natively. The mechanism also had to work on Novell, Lantastic, Banyan, LAN Manager, Samba, and other networking systems without requiring a new networking protocol (since that would have required network vendors to release new drivers and people to install them on their file servers).
  3. It had to be possible to copy a shortcut to a floppy disk or send it to a colleague as an e-mail attachment.
  4. Backup programs had to be able to back up and restore shortcuts.
  5. A shortcut had to contain information that allowed a user to customize its appearance and other properties, such as its hotkey.
  6. It had to be possible to create shortcuts to objects on different volumes, across file systems, as well as to items that weren't files, such as control panel programs and dial-up networking connections.
The first constraint is pretty straightforward. Basically, it says that we had to keep it simple. Anything fancy would have taxed a poor machine with only 4MB of memory.
Constraints two and three required that shortcuts be plain files rather than special file system objects. Once something has been sent as an e-mail attachment, you've pretty much lost everything other than a plain octet-stream.
Permitting existing backup programs to operate on shortcuts was an argument against inventing a new type of file system object, because existing backup programs wouldn't know how to deal with these new files. Therefore, the inability of backup programs to back up shortcuts wasn't a deal-breaker, but it certainly biased the decision in favor of using plain files. Even the introduction of long file names on FAT drives didn't break backup programs. Backup utilities could still back up the short names; and Windows 95 included the LFNBK utility that allowed you to back up and restore the long names manually.
The fifth requirement could have been satisfied by NTFS alternate streams, except for the fact that Windows 95 didn't support NTFS. (Even if it did, this would have required people to reformat their drives as NTFS in order to upgrade to Windows 95.) In the absence of alternate streams, the information must be stored elsewhere in Windows in order to present the rich user interface we desired.
Finally, the need to create shortcuts that span volumes and point to things that aren't even files meant that shortcuts could not be purely a file system feature, since the target of the shortcut might live outside the file system.
Given these constraints, the most reasonable option was for a shortcut to be a file that contained the necessary information about what it pointed to and any supplementary information, such as its icon and hotkey. This design has proven very flexible. Subsequent versions of Windows have added more functionality. For example, a shortcut can now represent a program that hasn't even been installed yet, but one which your domain administrator has made available. Or you can have shortcuts to files whose paths are relative to environment variables.
Some people have suggested that shortcuts could have operated like the Apple Macintosh Alias Manager. Indeed, on Windows NT®, shortcuts do operate similarly, and take the concept several steps further. If you create a shortcut to an object on an NTFS volume, the object's unique NTFS identifier is recorded in the shortcut and the Distributed Link Tracking Service is used to hunt down that object later on. The Distributed Link Tracking Service can locate the object in relatively straightforward cases where it has been renamed or moved to another directory on the same volume, and it can even track files in more complex scenarios when they have moved from one computer to another—even when a hard drive has been taken out of one computer and installed into another! Let's see you try that with a symbolic link.

Raymond Chen's Web site, The Old New Thing, deals with Windows history and Win32 programming. He still has trouble telling which of the sprouting things in his garden are weeds.
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