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Moonray · Jul 4, 2003, 06:39 AM

Are .DS_Store files gone now in Panther?

These little invisible buggers the Finder places everywhere annoy me enough that I would give an iApp if necessary to get finally rid of them.

So can anyone with Panter look (create a new folder, move some files in and out using the Finder, check in the terminal with 'ls -la /path/to/that/folder' if it created a file '.DS_Store') and tell please?

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bracken · Jul 4, 2003, 07:19 AM

I don't know if Panther fixes the problem but check this out. I created that yesterday to help others on a different forum.

SMacTech · Jul 4, 2003, 07:20 AM

I cannot say first hand myself, but I did read that this ' feature ' is no longer present in Panther. I will be happy, as I will no longer have to run the script every week that wades through 1 million plus files on our server, deleting these files.

Moonray · Jul 4, 2003, 07:31 AM

Originally posted by bracken:
I don't know if Panther fixes the problem but check this out. I created that yesterday to help others on a different forum.

Thanks, but I already use a shell script for deleting them.
I just really like to know if it's more than a rumor that it is gone.

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SMacTech · Jul 4, 2003, 07:46 AM

Here is the link where someone running Panther confirms the .DS_Store files problem is indeed gone.

Moonray · Jul 4, 2003, 07:56 AM

Originally posted by SMacTech:
Here is the link where someone running Panther confirms the .DS_Store files problem is indeed gone.

Ah thank you

My hope is that the info is correct and it's not only Windows servers.

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Lew · Jul 4, 2003, 08:02 AM

I had Panther installed on my Pismo and it still created .ds_store files.

Moonray · Jul 4, 2003, 08:07 AM

Originally posted by GFive:
I had Panther installed on my Pismo and it still created .ds_store files.

And was just about to get happy.
Come on Apple, you can put that info somewhere else where it does not mess things up.

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TheDisaster · Jul 4, 2003, 08:09 AM

I can't confirm either way because I have Jaguar and Panther on the same machine, so Jaguar has already left it's droppings everywhere.

SMacTech · Jul 4, 2003, 08:45 AM

It still creates them locally, but not on remote drives, as I understand it.

Lew · Jul 4, 2003, 08:46 AM

Nope. It definitely creates them on remote SMB shares. That was one of the first things I tried when I installed 10.3

SMacTech · Jul 4, 2003, 09:20 AM

Originally posted by GFive:
Nope. It definitely creates them on remote SMB shares. That was one of the first things I tried when I installed 10.3

The report was it didn't create them on Windows servers, so possibly it is just on AFP/IP shares and not SMB.
GFive, do you have access to a Win2k server using Services for Macintosh?

Lew · Jul 4, 2003, 09:38 AM

Originally posted by SMacTech:
The report was it didn't create them on Windows servers, so possibly it is just on AFP/IP shares and not SMB.

My test was done with a WinXP Pro workstation.

GFive, do you have access to a Win2k server using Services for Macintosh?

Unfortunately not, and I no longer have 10.3 installed on my PowerBook.

Burn · Jul 8, 2003, 04:40 PM

I am accessing a Win2k server all day and I am getting reports of these hidden files, have to explain to my Network Admin.. dunno what to tell him..

What should I tell him? Can these be simply deleted away once in a while?

TheDisaster · Jul 8, 2003, 04:54 PM

Originally posted by Burn:
I am accessing a Win2k server all day and I am getting reports of these hidden files, have to explain to my Network Admin.. dunno what to tell him..

What should I tell him? Can these be simply deleted away once in a while?

All these files are are small files that contain information on how the folder should be viewed and their contents. It is perfectly fine to delete them, but they'll just reappear when you list the folder from your Mac again.

Sarc · Jul 8, 2003, 07:37 PM

.DS_Store files are there on my system.
Just do a ls -a to reveal them on the Terminal.

PubGuy · Jul 9, 2003, 11:02 AM

Yes, the .DS_Store files will be on your LOCAL file system.....the Finder uses them to keep track of window positions and view preferences.

HOWEVER, the question is if Panther is fixed to quit dropping these files on Windows/Unix network shared drives. The .DS_Store file may be invisible to Mac users, but the other folks see these stupid files on every single director a Mac user navigates through...and its annoying to say the least....who wants a bunch of useless files sitting in their directories?

So, the question remains...does Panther fix the problem with Mac users leaving these crumbs whenever we navigate to a Windows/Unix shared directory?

Powaqqatsi · Jul 9, 2003, 11:15 AM

Couldn't Apple implement some kind of big DS_store, that's sits somewhere local like your user dir, which saves the folder info for al the networked volumes instead of a series of .DS_Store files on the networked volumes ?

Drakino · Jul 9, 2003, 02:18 PM

For any Samba admins out there, simply toss .DS_Store into the veto file list. OS X deals with this fine, and there is no mess to clean up. Also tossing in ._* works as well to remove the files OS X enjoys creating when accessing a file on a SMB or SMB/Appletalk hybrid server.

Eriamjh · Jul 9, 2003, 03:11 PM

How did OS9 store this information? Resource Fork?

Moonray · Jul 9, 2003, 03:51 PM

The question is what info is really stored in them ... If I run a script to delete them and then open my windows they still open as they did before, so there is at least other metadate already stored in another place.

And the .DS_Store files are also an annoyance in the local filesystem:

- If you run some server, other people might see and/or read them, that would at least reveal that you are running OS X, what the contents might reveal does no one really know.
- If you stuff/zip/tar a folder to give someone some files you get asked what that weird extra file is.
- It messes up the modification dates of folders. Imagine you have an area on your hd to archive some data and want to see when you last added something to a folder you can not go by the folder modification date any more.

Did I forget something? Probably yes. But these should be already enough reasons to find a better solution. When I first saw that Apple had the Finder create these I thought it was a quick hack because they were under some time pressure, and I hope there is now the time to kick them out for the final release of Panther.

(I hear the other 19 of the 20 most popular operating systems of the world work fine without such crooks).

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ameat · Jul 9, 2003, 09:08 PM

Originally posted by Powaqqatsi:
Couldn't Apple implement some kind of big DS_store, that's sits somewhere local like your user dir, which saves the folder info for al the networked volumes instead of a series of .DS_Store files on the networked volumes ?

...remember having to "rebuilt your desktop"?

Drakino · Jul 10, 2003, 12:17 AM

Originally posted by ameat:
...remember having to "rebuilt your desktop"?

I know of it, but since I switched over at OS X, never had to really deal with it beyond long ago at school in Mac OS 7.

I'd take this, or at least an option over putting tons of small files all over the network. At least the thumbs.db files XP leaves around can be disabled.

brainchild2b · Jul 10, 2003, 08:05 AM

From what I see in the preview .DS_Stores are still there. However samba ignores them.

TheDisaster · Jul 10, 2003, 05:03 PM

Originally posted by PubGuy:
So, the question remains...does Panther fix the problem with Mac users leaving these crumbs whenever we navigate to a Windows/Unix shared directory?

No, the question does not still remain.

Originally posted by Mimizuku no Lew:
Nope. It definitely creates them on remote SMB shares. That was one of the first things I tried when I installed 10.3

brainchild2b · Jul 10, 2003, 08:30 PM

Well it's easy enough to hide them anyway. You can set it up so they don't show on Samba/Network shares. I'm thinking Apple might ship panther with the option of the meta file system. It's yet to be seen.

Tsilou B. · Jul 11, 2003, 02:38 PM

Originally posted by Eriamjh:
How did OS9 store this information? Resource Fork?

No, OS 9 stored them as metadata in the HFS filesystem. :-)

iFix Rene · Jul 11, 2003, 02:48 PM

quot-The question is what info is really stored in them ... If I run a script to delete them and then open my windows they still open as they did before -end quote-

Have you restarted after deleting the DS files?
Else they are still in memory and thats why
folders opened the same way, I think

SMacTech · Jul 11, 2003, 03:00 PM

Originally posted by Burn:
I am accessing a Win2k server all day and I am getting reports of these hidden files, have to explain to my Network Admin.. dunno what to tell him..

What should I tell him? Can these be simply deleted away once in a while?

I delete them all the time via a script that runs just before backing up the servers. This is on Win2k, SP3. I have not seen any adverse effects from it in the last year we have been doing it.
I have instructed all of our OS X users to use column view, and in doing so, it seems to help them not show as often.
I have also seen additional reports of them not showing up since I last posted here about this. But without Panther for myself, I digress.