Microsoft raises maximum FAT32 partition size in Windows after nearly three decades

Microsoft patched an old bug (at least for those who care about disk formatting) earlier this week. Latest Windows 11 Insider Canary Preview (via The Edge), the company has increased the maximum size of a FAT32 partition from 32 GB to 2 TB when using the command line. This is an increase from the previous limit, which its creator believed would be limited by the lifespan of Windows NT 4.0, 28 years later.

FAT32 isn’t widely used today. Even SD cards, the last ones to resist it, have mostly moved to exFAT. (FAT32 has other limitations in the modern world, such as a 4GB file size limit.) So this seems like a fix—the Windows geek equivalent of pardoning a historical figure who died a century ago—rather than a practical change that will affect people today. The fact that the Windows GUI partitioning tool still includes a 32GB file partition limit makes it less likely that many people will find their files unreadable. tangible Take advantage of this step.

in Video 2021 On his YouTube channel “Dave’s Garage,” retired Microsoft systems engineer Dave Plummer explains why he chose the 32GB limit. When he chose the limit “on a rainy Tuesday morning” in the mid-1990s, he thought it would be too short a lifespan and would see a bump in the next release. “I went with the 32GB limit and went about my day,” he said. “It wasn’t until SD cards hit the magic 32GB size many years later that I began to regret that choice.”

Plummer went on to debunk the myth that Microsoft imposed the 32GB limit to drive adoption of the company’s NTFS format. He explained that NTFS was already widely adopted, and that, to his knowledge, Microsoft never promoted it or made a dime licensing it. Instead, he says that the artificial limit for FAT32 was more intended to prevent space wastage (especially with small files) than to promote any nefarious corporate strategies.

If you are truly If you want to be obsessed with disc formats in the ’90s, Plummer’s video released three years ago goes into more detail about his arbitrary decision that – unbeknownst to him at the time – lasted for nearly 30 years.