Dropping Ads And Some Of The Limits Of FAT32
We don’t often get nice things anymore, which is why it is worth pointing out that Microsoft have given us not one, but two things to be happy about this Friday. The first is something that should never have happened, which Microsoft have finally realized. For a while now Microsoft have been displaying full sized and pop up ads for Windows 11 on machines running Windows 10, which is currently the most used Microsoft OS. The reason they started doing so is valid, Windows 10’s end-of-support date is a year and a few months away; the way in which they did it rightfully upset a lot of users. Microsoft have finally listened to the overwhelming majority of their customers and will no longer display the pop ups nor full screen Win11 ads. They will likely start up again as the EoL date approaches, but will hopefully find a more tasteful method.
The second gift is the removal of the artificial limit on the size of FAT32 volumes. The artificial 32GB cap has been a thing for a very long time, and was obviously artificial since the largest number expressible in 32 bits translates to 2TB. You have been able to make much larger FAT32 partitions in a variety of ways, for use on Windows but now you will no longer need that extra step. Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27686 will allow you to make FAT32 partitions of up to 2TB in size. If you have an app or device which doesn’t play nicely with exFAT, you will soon be able to use it much more effectively. You will need format the drive via the command line, the GUI will still have the 32BG cap, but apart from that you will be able to easily use that huge SD card or USB drive.
