ADS - Alternate Data Streams and Copy operation

Hello,

If I have a file which contains ADS, if I copy the file with DOpus it always removes the data streams after being copied (regardless if it was copied to a local of remote location). It happens on Opus 10 and 11 as well. Is there a setting to have the streams to be copied together with the files/folders?

Thanks

Turn on Copy Metadata in Preferences or use a button which specifies the COPYPROPERTIES argument if you only want it some of the time (since it will slow things down slightly when copying lots of small files).

If you are referring to Preferences->File Operations->Copy Attributes->Copy Metadata(Comments etc.) then it is checked in my preferences but ADS is not copied along with the file when I use the copy. If I do it with Explorer it copies the ADS.

What are the ADS streams in this case?

I am not sure on what case your are referring to? If a file has ADS it can be any stream name that contains data. I have files that have different data streams (different stream names as well as different contents of data stream) none of them are copied along with the file. You can make a simple test: If you don't have a file that contains ADS then

  1. Download a file with internet explorer. Normally IE will add an ADS to the file it is the file name and :Zone.Identifier:$DATA data stream.
  2. You can see the data stream by simply running the Windows dir command with the argument /r -> dir /r yourfilename.theextension
  3. Now copy the file with DOpus and you will notice that after running the dir /r command again that it will not show the ADS of the copied file.

I would appreciate if you could check it out and if you confirm that the program ignores copying the ADS then please fix this bug. I am writing and using a lot of ADS's and I always use explorer to copy them. I thought that this problem would be fixed with DOpus 11 but probably since the majority of users don't use data streams this bug has never been observed.

Thank you

We only copy specific ADS streams, not all of them.

This isn't really a bug, but we can consider adding an option to copy all ADS streams for situations where people want that.

If you link your account the feature request will be given a higher priority, and if other people request the same thing it will be given a higher priority as well (of course).

I think being able to copy all ad streams makes total sense! I was not aware DO does not already do so.

It matters to you so much you never noticed it didn't happen? :slight_smile:

Which ADS data that you care about are you finding missing?

@leo
Yes indeed! o)
I especially tested the windows explorer, and it does copy ad-streams, so I simply did not expect DO (as an explorer replace-/enhancement) to not copy those streams.

I already planned on using these streams for personal stuff, for my photography-website e.g., to store metainformation there as well, just like DO does.
Imagine I spend weeks of coding and applying meta-data and in the end all these got lost on the next "copy". It's good we talk about this before that happened. o)

The only thing to not like about those streams is, that they are not supported widely I think. Maybe DO will advance to the first tool with full support (showing the default stream-size and filesize for all connected streams or maybe feature a stream-explorer mode, doubleclick or something would allow stream-browsing within files. Neat? I think! o)

@Leo
You have asked me to link my account, but I am bound by company's policy not to disclose users, licenses etc. Nevertheless I have been asked by my colleagues that you will address this issue and make it behaves at least at the minimum as an explorer replacement, once configured to copy metadata to copy all ADS regardless of stream type/name/size.

Thank you

[quote="tbone"]I already planned on using these streams for personal stuff, for my photography-website e.g., to store metainformation there as well, just like DO does.
Imagine I spend weeks of coding and applying meta-data and in the end all these got lost on the next "copy". It's good we talk about this before that happened. o)[/quote]

Photos have ways of storing metadata which are better than using ADS. ADS is a last resort for file formats where there's no other choice (except separate files containing the metadata, which has other tradeoffs).

ADS will be lost when archiving files, when copying to some device types, when copying or editing with most tools. Avoid it if you can.

This seems more like idle curiosity than a serious feature request. If you use the tools you already have to explore the world of ADS, you'll find it is very boring. Almost nothing uses ADS and where it is used it tends to be for very boring reasons (like IE's mark of the web), and binary data you can't read anyway.

Remember that just looking for ADS data on each file will significantly slow things down. You are asking for things to be made slower and time to be spent implementing features which would not actually be useful.

It makes sense for file copying to have the option to preserve ADS (and for it to be an option as it slows things down) but an "ADS Explorer" would not be useful to many people.

I am not sure how linking would disclose anything that wasn't disclosed already, but if you think it's against policy then fair enough.

Hello,

There has been quite a long time since I asked to add this feature to DOpus since Explorer natively supports ADS using the copy operation. But it wasn't implemented yet. I have also linked my personal account and I would appreciate if you will implement it. We really need it because we use ADS intensively with our software.

Thank you

An option for this has been added to the beta just released.

Very good! o) I mean really really good! o)

Thank you