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The operating systems (DOS, Win95/98, WinNT/2000/XP) maintain a type of meta data known as archive bits associated with every file and directories. In earlier MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows, there were four attributes: archive, hidden, read-only and system. Windows has added a new ones.The operating systems ([[MS-DOS]], Win95/98, WinNT/2000/XP) maintain a type of meta data known as archive bits associated with every file and directories. In earlier MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows, there were four attributes: archive, hidden, read-only and system. Windows has added a new ones.This bit is used by programs that modify files. One example of software making use of this bit is for file backup. It was common practice for backup software to use the archive bit for keeping track of files that have changed. In this way the software allows incremental backups based on the status of the archive bit. When the backup software archives or backs up the file, it resets the archive bit (cleared). Any software that subsequently makes a change to the file shall set the archive bit (set). Thus when the backup software runs the next time, it will be able to identify the modified files by considering the state of the archive bit. If the bit is set, it will replace the backed up version with the newly modified version. If the bit is still cleared, then the backup software will skip the file assuming that it is the same as what is on the backup archive.* Backup software will "clear" the archive bit (remote it from attrib output)* Software changing the file will "set" the archive bit (adding the A to attrib output)Poorly written software may modify the files without setting the archive attribute. If the backup software uses incremental backups to backup these files, it will rely on the software to set the bit appropriately. The Read-Only attribute will help prevent software programs from saving changes to a file. This is useful if you want to write protect a file. Note that a Read-Only file may not prevent it from being deleted depending on the method used. Under the old MS-DOS you could set a few files with the Read-only attributes and delete all the files using a "DEL *" (Delete all) command and the read only files would not be deleted. By design, the read-only bit must be cleared before you can write to a file. A file marked with the hidden attribute will be hidden from view under normal viewing conditions. This is a convenient way to hide the file from standard user-mode software. However, some software will ignore the Hidden attribute bit so be aware the file with the Hidden attribute bit is not always invisible.The hidden and system attributes are typically used together for operating system related files. The system bit denotes a file or directory used exclusively by the operating system which should not be altered or deleted directly by the end user.[[Category:Computer Technology]][[Category:Microsoft]][[Category:Windows]][[Category:DOS]][[Category:MSDOS]]