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I'm new to Linux, yet am now committing to Linux, probably formatting HDDs to run the ext4 file-system, for - almost - all work. I need to keep one Windows machine running an NTFS file-system for a few programs, especially Adobe Creative Suite, that don't have Linux versions. The plan is to keep all files, whether created in Windows or Linux, stored on Linux machines. Since I do keep important graphic-arts work created in Windows programs, I need to be sure these original Windows files will work in Windows, after being stored in the Linux ext4 file system.

So, this question asks whether files created using Windows programs, but stored in the Linux ext4 file system, will continue running in Windows programs trouble free? I recognize Linux offers chance to format drives using the NTFS file system, yet I'd rather set-up Linux life to use the ext4 file-system only, without setting-up special NTFS partitions for files created in Windows programs. Thanks for any help! Thank you. :)

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    Not part of an answer, but whatever solution you choose, make sure you have backups. Proper reliable backups that are tested periodically for recoverability. Commented yesterday

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I suspect the tool that you need on your Linux-based server will be "Samba", which presents part(s) of the filesystem as Windows SMB Network Shares. Do not be tempted to share /, but instead take a section of the filesystem and share that.

In my experience Samba works best (reliability, efficiency) when underpinned by a native Linux filesystem rather than NTFS.

If your Windows applications can work with files being saved to a Windows SMB Network filesystem they will work with Samba, and therefore can be saved on your Linux-based system. This is the decision that underpins the whole migration process, so it's important that you satisfy yourself that your applications can work in this way (most can, but I've encountered a few - particularly in the professional Language Translation segment - that cannot).

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    +1. It might be helpful for the OP to think of Linux running Samba as being a NAS or providing NAS services to the local network - and it's worth remembering that most pre-built NAS devices on the market are Linux (or sometimes FreeBSD) boxes running Samba. And NFS. And several other protocols & services like DHCP or a caching DNS resolver or NTP and much more (all of which can also be run on any Linux system, either directly on the Linux host itself or in VMs or containers on that host). Commented yesterday
  • If the OP is constrained to running on a single system, I've also heard of users running a WSL VM while in Windows to share Linux storage to Windows. This keeps the Linux filesystem access "native", while allowing Windows to access the filesystem(s) as a local shared drive. I'm not a Windows person so I don't know any details of how to configure this, I just thought I'd pass along the option. Obviously, if the OP can run permanently a separate Linux file server on the network (even just a Raspberry Pi with a USB HDD) that would be preferable. Commented 19 hours ago
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So, this question asks whether files created using Windows programs, but stored in the Linux ext4 file system, will continue running in Windows programs trouble free?

Yes. Files are (mostly) files; both Windows and Linux have extended attributes (xattrs in Linux, alternate streams in Windows), which do different things, but these are irrelevant for the programs you want to use.

Basically, your question is identical to "If I put them into a ZIP file and extract them later, do the files still work?". And that's true for almost all programs on Windows. (Exceptions are programs that make use of more obscure windows features as mentioned above, but that won't happen to you with Adobe things etc, because: if it needs to work on MacOS, too, then implementing something windows-specific is counter-productive.)

Honestly: unless you know you have very special needs, just go with whatever the installer of your Linux distro offers by default. That's sometimes ext4, but quite often these days is btrfs. (Which might be a wise choice in your case – it makes it easy to buy another hard drive, install it, and add it to the storage without having to move any data, it has snapshots etc.)

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