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Maxime C. edited this page Jun 4, 2015 · 17 revisions

Unsupported driver features

  • FSCTL

Unsupported operating systems

  • Windows Vista Compatible with Dokan version <= 0.6.0
  • Windows XP Compatible with Dokan version <= 0.6.0
  • Windows 2000

Alternatives

If anything of this list is critical for your project you only have three solution:

  • Wait for it If you can. Check that the feature is already requested on issue tracker and watch the issue evolution.
  • Do it From our opinion that's the best because it will help everyone, but you will need some additional time and knowledge. Once complete don't forget to create a new pull request.
  • Look for alternatives That's hard to say but sometime you don't have the choice. Dokan is the only real free, open source and maintained user mode file system driver library for Windows. However few technical tricks and commercial products exists, list bellow.
Name Comments
MiniFilter File System Driver Are you sure you need a File System Device Driver? Maybe MiniFilter introduced since Windows XP SP3 are enough for you. This still requires some additional work compared to Dokan but it could be a viable official alternative from Microsoft.
Shell Namespace Extension This has nothing to do with a file system but if you end up looking on alternatives that's maybe because you don't need a file system. Shell Namespace Extension only works on Windows Explorer but give you good control over the view and content of a virtual folder.
WebDAV This is definitely a trick but it is working nicely, specifically if you're targeting network drive. Instead of creating a file system driver, create a new WebDAV server. Most operating system including Windows has native support for WebDAV.
Pismo File Mount A company developing Virtual file system related software and providing user mode FS core features as a free (not open source) sdk. They're not communicating much but keep it up to date.
Callback File System Dokan and CBFS are frequently compared. EldoS company is not always playing fair play against Dokan (misleading Dokan/CBFS comparison, aggressive marketing communication, Dokan thread hijack..) but that's the game. Their product are quite good otherwise and they offer a large environment in addition to basic device driver api. License cost is few thousand of $$$ (they used to provide discount and sometimes free license for open source projects).
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