Microsoft fixed an old “bug” (at least for those who obsess over disk formatting) earlier this week. latest Windows 11 Insider Canary Preview Build (through The edge), the company raised the maximum FAT32 partition size limit from 32GB to 2TB when using the command line. The increase from the previous limit, which its creator intended to be limited to the lifespan of Windows NT 4.0, comes after 28 years.
Today, FAT32 isn't widely used. Even SD cards, the last bastion, have mostly moved to exFAT. (FAT32 has other limitations for the modern world, such as a 4GB file size limit.) So the change seems to be more about a fix (the Windows expert equivalent of forgiving a historical figure who's been dead for a century) than a practical change that will affect people today. The fact that the Windows GUI partition tool still includes the 32GB partition limit further reduces the odds that many will find it much more useful. tangible benefit from the move.
In a Video 2021 On his YouTube channel “Dave's Garage,” retired Microsoft systems engineer Dave Plummer explained why he chose the 32GB partition limit. When he chose the limit “on a rainy Tuesday morning” in the mid-90s, he thought it would have an extremely short lifespan and would increase in the next revision. “I chose the number 32GB as the limit and went about my day,” he said. “I didn’t start to regret that choice until SD cards hit the magic 32GB size many years later.”
Plummer went on to challenge the myth that Microsoft imposed the 32GB limit to drive adoption of the company’s NTFS format. He explained that NTFS was already widely adopted and that, as far as he knows, Microsoft never promoted it or made a cent from licensing it. Instead, he says that FAT32’s artificial limit had more to do with avoiding wasted space (especially with small files) than implementing sinister corporate strategies.
If you In fact If you want to know more about record formats in the '90s, Plummer's video from three years ago goes into more detail about his arbitrary decision that, unbeknownst to him at the time, would last nearly 30 years.
