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1. Open Linux File System In Windows
2. Linux File System Viewer Windows 10
3. Linux File System Windows Driver
4. Linux File System Reader Windows
5. Windows Mount Linux Filesystem

Do you dual boot between Windows and Linux on your computer? This is a new way people are using their computers to enjoy the benefits of both the operating systems. The only problem that users face on Windows is that they are not able to access their files that were created in Linux. Even though both the operating systems are on the same device, they follow a different file system. While Linux can easily read the NTFS file system in which Windows store files, Windows cannot read Linux’s file system. In this post, we’ve covered a free tool called Linux Reader which solves this exact problem by letting you read files from a Linux filesystem on Windows.

Linux File System vs Windows File System A file system (also known as filesystem) is a technique for storing data in an organized and a human-readable form. The basic unit of a data file system is called a file. While VolFs files are stored in regular files on Windows in the directories mentioned above, interoperability with Windows is not supported. If a new file is added to one of these directories from Windows, it lacks the EAs needed by VolFs, so VolFs doesn’t know what to do with the file and simply ignores it.

DiskInternals Linux Reader

DiskInternals Linux Reader is completely free and lets you access files from Ex2/3/4, UFS2, HFS, and ReiserFS/4 file systems. Apart from that, the tool can also read normal Windows supported file systems such as NTFS, Fat, exFat, etc.

However, complex it may seem, but Linux Reader makes it simple to access files from a Linux filesystem in Windows. The tool only provides read-only access which means you cannot accidentally mess up with your Linux file system from Windows.

Read Linux File systems on Windows

The program has a neat interface which resembles somewhat with Windows Explorer which makes Linux Reader an easy to use and understand the tool. You can open any drive which has been formatted to be used with a Linux. And you can browse its content like any other drive. The program has almost all of the standard features such as a search box, navigation buttons, recent files, and folders. Also, you can specify a view and sort files on all the available properties.

If you are on the root of a drive, Linux Reader will show you some stats like count of different types of files. It also displays a pie chart which can be customized a little. All these nifty little features come handy when you are browsing files from a foreign file system.

You can preview all sorts of files, or you can save them on your Windows area to edit it and work on it. Right-click a file or folder and click on Save to save it inside Windows. You will need to specify a directory in which the files should be saved.

Linux Reader also lets you mount Raw Disk Images or Virtual Disks. So, any work done in a virtual machine can also be retrieved, and all the files can be easily accessed. This is a nice feature if you work a lot on virtual machines or if you have a raw disk image of your file system. To mount a drive, go to Drives menu and select Mount Image. In the next step, select the type of image you have and enter the path to that file, and you are done.

Linux Reader is a great tool and a quick, safe option to access files from a Linux file system. It is free, easy to use and gets the job done. The added features such as support for disk images and the ability to connect to a DiskInternals Recovery Server are a plus.

All in all, this is a must-have tool if you dual boot on your computer or happen to use Linux alongside Windows in any other way. Click here to download Linux Reader.

Related Posts:

I have installed Ubuntu subsystem on Windows 10 (after enabling feature in settings), but where is the Ubuntu file system root directory located in the drive?

JulyJuly

5 Answers

For Ubuntu installed from the Windows store:

Each distribution you install through the store is installed to that application's appdata directory. For example: C:Users<username>AppDataLocalPackagesCanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgscLocalState- benhillis

In earlier iterations of Windows Subsystem for Linux, the Ubuntu file system was at %localappdata%Lxss (e.g., C:UsersUsernameAppDataLocalLxss - replace the Username with your Username on Windows). See the WSL blog post on File System Support:

The primary file system used by WSL is VolFs. It is used to store the Linux system files, as well as the content of your Linux home directory. As such, VolFs supports most features the Linux VFS provides, including Linux permissions, symbolic links, FIFOs, sockets, and device files.

VolFs is used to mount the VFS root directory, using %LocalAppData%lxssrootfs as the backing storage. In addition, a few additional VolFs mount points exist, most notably /root and /home which are mounted using %LocalAppData%lxssroot and %LocalAppData%lxsshome respectively. The reason for these separate mounts is that when you uninstall WSL, the home directories are not removed by default, so any personal files stored there will be preserved.

CAUTION

Creating/modifying any files within the Linux subsystem using Windows apps & tools can cause Data corruption and data loss in Ubuntu subsystem! (Thanks to Rich Turner for suggesting these words of caution!) This is absolutely not supported. From the same blog post:

Open Linux File System In Windows

Interoperability with Windows

While VolFs files are stored in regular files on Windows in the directories mentioned above, interoperability with Windows is not supported. If a new file is added to one of these directories from Windows, it lacks the EAs needed by VolFs, so VolFs doesn’t know what to do with the file and simply ignores it. Many editors will also strip the EAs when saving an existing file, again making the file unusable in WSL.

Your Windows file system is located at /mnt/c in the Bash shell environment.

Source: Dustin Kirkland's blog, howtogeek

souravcsouravc

This seems to have changed since Bash was originally introduced, and does not apply to distributions from the Windows Store, or maybe it is not consistent for all systems as my home directory is located in another location:

or:

Where {user} is your Windows Username and {username} is your UNIX Username set during install.

So the root directory would be:

Note that the root directory may not be visible in Windows Explorer from the %localappdata% directory. You should be able to access it anyways by typing it in the 'address bar' of Explorer.

Louis

If you install Linux from MS Market:

they placed distros under:

Default distro defined by:

Linux root is deeper:

PS. I used Cygwin to explore registry keys.

If using PowerShell for the same goal, the commands would be:

PPS. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2016/11/17/do-not-change-linux-files-using-windows-apps-and-tools/

The only thing that worked for me was %localappdata%lxsshome{username}, where the {username} is your BASH username you gave it during the installation. For some reason, after showing hidden folder's lxss refuses to appear in C:UsersWINDOWS-USERAppDataLocal, and also giving the full C: path with windows and BASH username does not work either.

And please create a desktop shortcut for what works.

thinksinbinarythinksinbinary

You can quickly open Bash from a File Explorer window of the opened folder by typing bash in the location bar.

It's enough.

Also you can add a context menu item. I personally don`t recommend it if not needed, because adding shortcuts to the context menu uses more RAM.

mwfearnley

Linux File System Viewer Windows 10

KangaroooKangarooo

Linux File System Windows Driver

Linux File System Reader Windows

protected by Community♦Aug 11 '16 at 17:44

Windows Mount Linux Filesystem

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