Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
uses to describe the
packet writing
Packet writing (or incremental packet writing, IPW) is an optical disc recording technology used to allow write-once and rewritable CD and DVD media to be used in a similar manner to a floppy disk from within the operating system.
Details
P ...
method of creating discs in
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...
and later, which allows writeable
optical media
In computing and optical disc recording technologies, an optical disc (OD) is a flat, usually circular disc that encodes binary data ( bits) in the form of pits and lands on a special material, often aluminum, on one of its flat surfaces ...
to act like
mass storage
In computing, mass storage refers to the storage of large amounts of data in a persisting and machine-readable fashion. In general, the term is used as large in relation to contemporaneous hard disk drives, but it has been used large in relati ...
by replicating its file operations. Live File System lets users manage files on recordable and rewriteable optical discs inside the
file manager
A file manager or file browser is a computer program that provides a user interface to manage files and folders. The most common operations performed on files or groups of files include creating, opening (e.g. viewing, playing, editing or pr ...
with the familiar workflow known from mass storage media such as
USB flash drive
A USB flash drive (also called a thumb drive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. It is typically removable, rewritable and much smaller than an optical disc. Most weigh less than . Since firs ...
s and external
hard disk drive
A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnet ...
s.
Files can be added incrementally to the media, as well as modified, moved and deleted. These discs use the UDF file system. The supported UDF versions for usage as a live file system are UDF 1.50, UDF 2.00, UDF 2.01, UDF 2.50 for
CD-R
CD-R (Compact disc-recordable) is a digital optical disc storage format. A CD-R disc is a compact disc that can be written once and read arbitrarily many times.
CD-R discs (CD-Rs) are readable by most CD readers manufactured prior to the in ...
,
CD-RW
CD-RW (Compact Disc-Rewritable) is a digital media, digital optical disc data storage device, storage format introduced in 1997. A CD-RW compact disc (CD-RWs) can be written, read, erased, and re-written.
CD-RWs, as opposed to CDs, require ...
,
DVD±R DVD±R (also DVD+/-R, or "DVD plus/dash R") is not a separate DVD format, but rather is a shorthand term for a DVD drive that can accept both of the common recordable DVD formats (i.e. DVD-R and DVD+R). Likewise, DVD±RW (also written as DVD±R/W, D ...
BD-RE
Blu-ray Disc Recordable (BD-R) refers to two direct to disc optical disc recording technologies that can be recorded on to a Blu-ray-based optical disc with an optical disc recorder. BD-R discs can be written to once, whereas Blu-ray Disc Recorda ...
, and UDF 2.60 for
BD-R
Blu-ray Disc Recordable (BD-R) refers to two direct to disc optical disc recording technologies that can be recorded on to a Blu-ray-based optical disc with an optical disc recorder. BD-R discs can be written to once, whereas Blu-ray Disc Recorda ...
.
The ''Live File System'' option is used by default by
AutoPlay
AutoPlay, a feature introduced in Windows 98, examines newly discovered removable media and devices and, based on content such as pictures, music or video files, launches an appropriate application to play or display the content. It is closely rel ...
when formatting/erasing a CD/DVD -R or -RW.
Compatibility
Older Windows versions do not have support for reading the latest UDF versions. If users create DVD/CDs in Windows Vista using UDF 2.50, these may not be readable on other systems, including Windows XP and older (pre-Mac OS 10.5) Apple systems unless a third-party UDF reader driver is installed. To ensure compatibility of disks created on Windows Vista, UDF 2.01 or lower should be selected.
Image Mastering API
The Image Mastering Application Programming Interface, or IMAPI, is a component of Microsoft Windows operating system used for CD and DVD authoring and recording.
Windows applications such as Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, Windows Mov ...