| Glossary |
The tables in this documentation aren't completely consistant. Below is a key to the tables showing how various fields are represented.
Any table fields that have footnote marks, e.g. (a), (e), will have a fuller description immediately below the table.
In NTFS not all fields are of a fixed size. Some depend on the value of another field, some depend on the contents of the field.
All the numbers in size fields are in decimal format. e.g. 12 (twelve), 42 (forty-two).
| Key | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 12 | Fixed | This field is twelve bytes long. Its size is constant. |
| P8 | Padding | P8 means pad the field to an 8 byte boundary. The size of this field could be 0 - 7 bytes. P4 means 4 byte alignment, etc (a) |
| V | Variable | The length of this field depends on its contents. An example is a SID. To know its length, you must decode the structure. |
| S | X-Ref | A cross-reference shows that the size is defined elsewhere in the table. The size can be represented by any letter, except P or V. |
(a) Any padding of a fixed size will be displayed as a fixed size.
Where a table represents an index, the key and data will be shown as below:
| Offset | Size | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0x00 | 2 | Offset to data | |
| 0x02 | 2 | Size of data | |
| 0x04 | 4 | Key | SID |
| 0x08 | 4 | Data | Owner Id |
| 0x0C | 4 | Data | Hash |
Note that the fields are not all used in exactly the same way. NT indicates old fields whereas 2K and XP indicate new fields.
| OS | NTFS | Description |
|---|---|---|
| blank | all | Used by all versions of Windows |
| NT | 1.2 | Only used in Windows NT |
| 2K | 3.0 | Windows 2000 and later |
| XP | 3.1 | New to Windows XP |
repeating groups?
link padding8, padding and other table features to help/tables
consistant use of padding/alignment fields