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Subject:Re: Universal File Name Conventions From:John Wilcox <john -at- SYNTAX -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 27 Nov 1995 08:25:19 -0800
> Date: Thu, 23 Nov 1995 13:26:52 -0500
> From: Angela Williams <williama -at- COGNOS -dot- COM>
> I'm wondering if anyone can tell me if the Universal File Name Convention in
> WFW is invented, created, owned, copyrighted or just used by Microsoft.
> The convention I am talking about is where you can substitute the network
> drive letters with the server name and share directory name. For example,
This convention is part of the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol,
developed jointly by Microsoft, 3Com, and Intel way back in the '80s.
SMB was originally designed to be the basis of MS LAN Manager, which has
since been incorporated into WFW (as Windows Network), NT, and Windows 95.
SMB is also the basis of IBM Lan Server and Lan Requester, Tiara 10NET,
CBIS Desk To Desk, and Syntax LMserver.
Novell's filename convention, part of IPX, uses
servername:volume
instead of
\\net
and can use /'s instead of \'s.
(Disclaimer: This is not intended to be an exhaustive description.)
John Wilcox <john -at- syntax -dot- com>
Senior Technical Writer
Syntax, Inc., 840 S. 333rd St., Federal Way, WA 98003-6343 USA
voice 206-838-2626, fax 206-838-9836, http://www.syntax.com
