> Nicolas Alvarez wrote:

>>> Unlike UNIX, it's not just a matter of seeking around. You have to 
>>> open the file as a sparse file, then you have to say "hey, this area 
>>> is sparse" rather than (say) just writing all zeros to the blocks or 
>>> something.
>>
>> Not really... Cross-platform programs that don't use any 
>> Windows-specific API manage to create sparse files here.
> 
> I think if you write to it, regardless of what you write, you get 
> allocated space. UNIX *used* to see an all-zeros buffer and say "Gee, we 
> don't need to write that."  You didn't have to seek over the sparse 
> space to make it sparse, IIRC.

Right, as far as I know, if you write 0s without using any special 
Windows API, the 0s actually get written (that's the pre-allocation 
download programs do).

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