Thicket files in Windows - how are they "linked"?
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I have htm files that are somehow linked to folders on Windows 7. If you copy the htm file, you automatically get the folder as well. My research so far tells me it's called thicket files.
Example:
xxx.htm (html file)
xxx_files (name of folder with additional files that the html file needs)How are these "linked" together? Is it some kind of attribute or something or is it "hardcoded" into the OS somehow? Or maybe it's just "linked" by the name and "_files" is a reserved folder name suffix in Windows? Or is it just the file explorer that knows about this?
I want make a script that copies and renames these files but I need to now how the OS knows that they belong together so I can replicate the "link".
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My search keep showing SharePoint. Does this only happens when getting those files from SharePoint?
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@black3dynamite said in Thicket files in Windows - how are they "linked"?:
My search keep showing SharePoint. Does this only happens when getting those files from SharePoint?
No, there's no SharePoint at all involved.
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@Pete-S said in Thicket files in Windows - how are they "linked"?:
@black3dynamite said in Thicket files in Windows - how are they "linked"?:
My search keep showing SharePoint. Does this only happens when getting those files from SharePoint?
No, there's no SharePoint at all involved.
Actually, if I just create a file called
xxx.htmand a folder calledxxx_filesthey now belong together.If you delete just the
xxx.htmfile the folder gets deleted too and if you copy the htm file, the folder will also be copied. Very odd.BTW, this is on another Windows 7 machine that has nothing to do with this. Is this a Windows feature?
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Tried another OS and Windows 2012 R2 behaves the same.
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I recall seeing this ages ago. It happened when I would save a website onto my computer. I found that the directory had copies of the images (and perhaps other files) that the HTM file referenced.
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Yeah we see this whenever we publish Excel sheets as webpages to our Intranet.
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@Dashrender said in Thicket files in Windows - how are they "linked"?:
I recall seeing this ages ago. It happened when I would save a website onto my computer. I found that the directory had copies of the images (and perhaps other files) that the HTM file referenced.
@Pete-S
Indeed this has been true since at least Windows 98 when IE had the feature (maybe still does) "Read web page offline" and also as a part of the Save... feature, and other browsers copied that same implementation when saving the assets. In the end it doesn't matter where it came from, how it was created, etc nor whether 9x or NT. If there's a .htm(l) file and a directory with _files in the name they are treated as linked in Explorer, but not in CMD (IIRC). -
@tonyshowoff said in Thicket files in Windows - how are they "linked"?:
@Dashrender said in Thicket files in Windows - how are they "linked"?:
I recall seeing this ages ago. It happened when I would save a website onto my computer. I found that the directory had copies of the images (and perhaps other files) that the HTM file referenced.
@Pete-S
Indeed this has been true since at least Windows 98 when IE had the feature (maybe still does) "Read web page offline" and also as a part of the Save... feature, and other browsers copied that same implementation when saving the assets. In the end it doesn't matter where it came from, how it was created, etc nor whether 9x or NT. If there's a .htm(l) file and a directory with _files in the name they are treated as linked in Explorer, but not in CMD (IIRC).Thanks. I made the same observation - that it is the name that link the directory and file together and it is only in Explorer it is treated as a link.
