File Integrity: Windows Still Fails at the Most Basic Task

It goes without saying that an operating system has to provide access to files: open, close, read, write, etc. It should also go without saying that an operating sytem provides file integrity.

When one program has opened a file for the purpose of updating it, no other program should be allowed to update the file at the same time. That would be like a drivers education car with two steering wheels.

Managing concurrent updates is not an operating system task, it's a database task.

I griped before that Windows XP fails this most basic task. Eight years after the release of XP, Windows 7 still fails this most basic undertaking.

The Test

To test this, open a .txt file in Notepad. Then open it in Wordpad. In Wordpad enter the word "wordpad", save the file and exit Wordpad. In Notepad, write the word "notepad", save the file and exit Notepad. Open it next, in either program, and you'll see that the file no longer has the word "wordpad".

The second program (Wordpad in this case) should not be allowed to open the file after the first program (Notepad in this case) has registered its update intent. Millions of lines of code and Windows still can't handle this most basic of tasks.

There is no excuse for this.