renaming files for windows

While all file systems support ASCII file names, there is usually a subset of characters that are not supported. For example, Linux and UNIX do not support naming a file with a forward slash character ‘/’; and the Windows NTFS file system disallows forward and backward slash, as well as colon and several more characters.

The Windows NTFS file system is stricter than Linux ext3 in what file (and directory) names it will or will not support. And Samba, the Windows file server software for Linux/UNIX, is stricter yet in what file names it will support. To assist me with renaming *NIX files to Windows-proper names, I have created a command-line app called “winrename”. It acts like the UNIX “find” command, but recursively renames files and directories to be Windows naming compatible.

The source for “winrename” is available at: …/000_rename_for_windows/.