[SteveJobs]

Hey everyone,
I have three issues a friend of mine came across just recently:
First of all, he uses OS X 10.3 and sometimes has to transfer files to a PC. He puts the files on a CD and when the CD is loaded into the PC, the PC displays all the DS.Store files - this can be quite irritating, he told me. Is there a way to copy the files to the CD without OS X creating DS.Store files? (Or some other solution?)

Next: When the whole thing goes the other way around - i.e. he gets a CD from a PC bud and puts it into the Mac -, all the files names are displayed as capitals. Is it possible that the real names are displayed?

Last question: My friend wants to use CarbonCopy to change the hard drive. What do you think about this? Is CarbonCopy any good? Are there better alternatives?

Greetings and thanks in advance,
Ingmar

[Millennium]

Originally posted by SteveJobs:
Hey everyone,
I have three issues a friend of mine came across just recently:
First of all, he uses OS X 10.3 and sometimes has to transfer files to a PC. He puts the files on a CD and when the CD is loaded into the PC, the PC displays all the DS.Store files - this can be quite irritating, he told me. Is there a way to copy the files to the CD without OS X creating DS.Store files? (Or some other solution?)

Thost files are used by the OSX Finder (which is roughly analogous to Windows Explorer) to display items. They are copied over so that the OSX Finder can continue to display the files on the CD exactly as they were displayed on the Mac they came from.

You can get around most of this by burning the files individually, rather dragging them over folder-by-folder. You'll still have one DS_Store file to deal with, at the top level of the CD, but no others.

Next: When the whole thing goes the other way around - i.e. he gets a CD from a PC bud and puts it into the Mac -, all the files names are displayed as capitals. Is it possible that the real names are displayed?

No. This is actually an inherent flaw in the Windows filesystem as used for CDs, and there is nothing Apple can do about it. Both the Windows and Mac filesystems are case-insensitive, which means that they don't consider case to be significant when looking for files; "hello" and "HeLlO" are considered the same thing. However, the Mac filesystems still note the case of the filename down as part of the file. Windows does not do this. In recent versions of Windows they've started preserving the case of filenames, but this was a bolted-on hack to Windows Explorer, rather than a part of the filesystem, so it doesn't get preserved when you burn them to CD.

Because of this, the Mac has no idea what case to use to display the filenames. Lacking any real way to find out, Apple decided to display them in all caps. Not the greatest solution, but in the absence of anything better it gets the job done.

In essence, these two problems you're dealing with here have to do with fundamental differences in how OSX and Windows treat files. Each method has its strengths and weaknesses, but they've been covered up to the point where the only time you see them is when you go across platforms.

Last question: My friend wants to use CarbonCopy to change the hard drive. What do you think about this? Is CarbonCopy any good? Are there better alternatives?

CCC has a very good reputation for this sort of thing. I've never used it for this exact purpose, but I've used it for similar things with no trouble. Perhaps someone with more experience can give more information on this.

[Visnaut]

Quite honestly, I've never had any filename issues with CDs burned with XP's built-in burning wizard. All the files appear as they should in Mac OS X, long filenames and all. I can only assume your buddy's friend is burning his CDs with some other application. If that's the case, burning CDs as ISO9660 with the filename format set to Joliet will produce multi-platform readable CDs 99% of the time.

If your friend burns CDs often and wants to avoid spraying .DS_Store files all over the place, and can afford Toast I would strongly suggest it. Lots of burning options, and when you drag folders over you can go through and delete all of the invisible files.

As for CCC, It does work quite nicely, but I've had issues moving over OS X installs, such as Quicktime Player inexplicably not working on the destination drive, as well as some permissions issues. So tread lightly. Chances are it'll work fine, but I myself always prefer to install OS X on a fresh drive and configuring it all over again. I've found I don't run into as many issues in the long run that way.

[Taipan]

Hi!

Regarding the .DS_Store issue: Finally someone has found a case where Tiger's burnable folders might come in handy: Just drag the content you want to burn into one of those and then delete all .DS_Store files within with a simple shell command, then burn.