5 Appendix A: Product Behavior

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The information in this specification is applicable to the following Microsoft products or supplemental software. References to product versions include updates to those products.

 

  • Windows 2000 operating system

  • Windows Server 2003 operating system

  • Windows Server 2008 operating system

  • Windows 7 operating system

  • Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system

  • Windows 8 operating system

  • Windows Server 2012 operating system

  • Windows 8.1 operating system

  • Windows Server 2012 R2 operating system

  • Windows 10 operating system 

  • Windows Server 2016 operating system

  • Windows Server operating system

  • Windows Server 2019 operating system

  • Windows Server 2022 operating system

  • Windows 11 operating system

  • Windows Server 2025 operating system

Exceptions, if any, are noted in this section. If an update version, service pack or Knowledge Base (KB) number appears with a product name, the behavior changed in that update. The new behavior also applies to subsequent updates unless otherwise specified. If a product edition appears with the product version, behavior is different in that product edition.

Unless otherwise specified, any statement of optional behavior in this specification that is prescribed using the terms "SHOULD" or "SHOULD NOT" implies product behavior in accordance with the SHOULD or SHOULD NOT prescription. Unless otherwise specified, the term "MAY" implies that the product does not follow the prescription.

<1> Section 2.1: Windows stops processing an NT backup file when it detects a malformation, but it does not delete any partially restored file information.

<2> Section 2.3: The NTFS file system supports named streams. All other Microsoft file systems such as the FAT file system and the FAT32 file system do not support named streams. The NTFS file system requires that the name of each ALTERNATE_DATA stream in an NT backup file begin with the colon character (:). NTFS appends ":$DATA" to the name of any alternate stream that does not already end that way, so it handles a.txt:AlternateStream and a.txt:AlternateStream:$DATA identically. When restoring an NT Backup format file onto the FAT file system, Windows ignores named streams.

<3> Section 2.5: The extended attribute stream exists only in files created by Windows versions Windows NT 3.1 operating system, Windows NT 3.5 operating system and Windows NT 3.51 operating system.

<4> Section 2.7: This field contains Distributed Link Tracking information for the file, if any, if the file is stored in an NTFS file system. The first 16 bytes contain the file's birth volume ID, which is the volume on which the object resided when the object ID was created, or 0 if the volume had no object identifier at that time. The next 16 bytes contain the object ID at the time the object was created, which is required to be unique within the volume on which it was created. The next 16 bytes contain the domain ID, which is set to 0. The FILE_OBJECTID_BUFFER structure is specified in [MS-FSCC] section 2.1.3. For more information about the Distributed Link Tracking Service, see [MS-DLTCS] and [MS-DLTW].

<5> Section 2.10: Windows uses sparse file support when writing to the NTFS file system but not to others, such as the FAT file system and the FAT32 file system.

<6> Section 2.13.1: When creating an NT backup file for use with the File Replication Service Protocol, as specified in [MS-FRS1], Windows requires that the first backup stream in the NT backup file be of type BACKUP_SECURITY_DATA.

<7> Section 2.13.2: Windows always selects the last instance of the blocks in question for installation into F.