1.3 File Systems

A file system is an abstraction. It provides a uniform interface to access files, directories and other disk related resources, regardless of the actual implementation. All file systems provide some common functions:

• file creation
• file deletion
• file modification
• directory creation
• directory deletion
• file reading
• file writing
• file random access

As technology progresses, file systems evolve. This section introduces the most common file systems used in Windows XP.