[Uisce]

Hey all,

I was transfering some files via a local network from my 10.2.6 to WinXP Pro, and I noticed something with the transferred files I want to ask about.

For some files, once transfered, there appeared a hidden file with the same name, although the sizes were different. What are these ghost files that transferred?

[Drakino]

These would be the "crap" files OS X enjoys leaving behind on Windows network shares. Deleting them does nothing. Feel free to submit feedback to Apple to ask them to stop spreading these files around. I for now have just added some entries to my veto files on a Samba server, thus preventing OS X from saving them. Unfortunatly Windows has no similar option.

[CharlesS]

Specifically, those dot files are AppleDouble encoding files. They store various bits of Mac-specific metadata, such as the resource fork, type and creator codes, custom icons, etc. Most of the time, the files contain only non-essential information, so deleting them does no harm. However, some types of files occasionally will have important data stored in the resource fork, which is why Mac OS X automatically saves those files.

For standard, cross-platform file types such as .txt, .jpg, .mp3, etc. you do not have to worry about the resource fork and can delete these files with abandon. For older Mac-specific types, it may contain data... a good way to tell is to see if the file's size is large.

[starman]

DO NOT DELETE THEM.

They're essential to the files if you're on the Mac side. You could essentially delete VITAL resource info if you do.

Only .DS_Store files are useless.

Mike

[Macola]

Does anyone know if this problem has gone away in Panther? The files seem to constantly annoy PC network admin types...

[Uisce]

Originally posted by Macola:
Does anyone know if this problem has gone away in Panther? The files seem to constantly annoy PC network admin types...

No ideas on Panther, but they really annoy me! I have about ten gigs of data that has all this clutter with it now that its been transferred.

[Big Mac]

It's safe to assume Apple hasn't done anything to fix this issue. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't seem to want to please Mac users or PC users when it comes to resource forks or metadata. There really should be an option to prevent these files from being created in a normal copy operation to a foreign format volume. If one really wants to preserve the resource fork, the files should be in Mac Binary. Otherwise, only the data fork should come along, since non-Mac systems won't be using anything else.

[jindrich]

the worst of it all is the stupid feel you get when living in a multiOs environment. You leave a muddy trace all over you go, for the irritation of whatever IT people there is (not to mention the fact that you CAN BE TRACED, by a 5 y.old kid)

what a bad OS beahviour, ..i'm thinking of Barney (from the Simpsons) with wet shoes messing all places he steps on. This is ridiculous.

why can't the particular jawire/panther/felino...etc computer accessing the remote servers/folders, store those garbage files into a temp folder IN ITS OWN HD? (not in the servers'). Isn't it HIM who's browsing/accessing the files? (and they're only useful to himself), so why not store it locally?????????
please someone give me one reason.

[browneyedgirl]

Hello,

I am very intereseted in this topic of discussion, we were just yesterday on the phone with "MAC support" (using the name lightly) asking about this issue. The guy on the phone had no idea what a macshare was, and kept trying to get me to connect directly to the the G4 on the other side of the room, this of course had nothing to do with my problems. I am running OSX on a G5 and my partner in crime is running G4 9.1, the mac share is cluttered with my ghost files! While this of course has no effect on me, it drives her crazy! We just delete them and move on, I have not yet had a problem doing so, but of course she has problems opening files sometimes because aparently she needs some of that information.

The other problem is this, we recently upgraded our zip 250's to zip 750's and found out that our zip 100 discs weren't compatible with the 750. Her G4 was acting freaky so I transfered some information from a 100 to my desktop with the old 250, then re saved them onto a 750 disc so she could get into them and make changes and so forth. When she put the disc in her zip drive all the files had dropped the extensions and showed as pc files. Now she has to add the extension back on each file and then open the program and open the file from within the program! anyone know if there is any way around this?

Oh yeah one other Awesomely time consuming pain in the arse, which I am not 100% if it is MAC or illustrator 10, when I save a file as eps, she goes to import to Quark 4.1 the image comes in larger then the orginal file size......any clue?

Thanks!!http://forums.macnn.com/newreply.php...readid=173911#