Windows can't read my text files?

[Murrquan]

I've been using Fedora for a few months now, and while I love it to death I'm occasionally stymied by something weird. This time, though, it's on Windows' side!

Yesterday I sent a text file that I wrote on Gedit to my brother in Texas, who is using XP but is getting fed up with it. Here's the resulting exchange:

(11:00:02 PM) (screen name): FILE NO WORKY
(11:00:07 PM) Murrquan: o.o
(11:00:19 PM) Murrquan: It won't open in Notepad
(11:00:20 PM) Murrquan: ?
(11:00:48 PM) (screen name): Nup
(11:01:05 PM) Murrquan: That's odd. Does it have a .txt file extension?
(11:01:31 PM) (screen name): Nope
(11:02:22 PM) Murrquan: Try renaming it so that it does, and then opening it in Notepad.
(11:03:47 PM) Murrquan: Does that work murr?
(11:04:05 PM) (screen name): Um... the file seems to have been deleted by windows.
(11:04:11 PM) (screen name): It was "harmful"
(11:04:24 PM) Murrquan: *is giving the screen an extremely odd look*
(11:04:30 PM) (screen name): OKAY MICROSOFT. NOW IT'S WAR.

I think he'd like to switch to Linux, if only Cedega played Final Fantasy XI. ^.^; But that's not the point. Why can't he open ISO or Unicode text files in Notepad, why the heck did it delete my file, and what can I do to get around this? Right now I use Gedit for almost all of my word processing, and I'm very attached to it. I'd prefer not to give it up.

[Seve]

Hello:
Try saving it from gedit with a .txt extension. i.e. filename.txt
then re-send it and see what happens ?

Seve

[Dan]

Hmmm.

I think Windows may have gotten spooked and killed it because the "executable" attribute was set. Try checking the permissions.


Dan

[giulix]

Use unix2dos or tell your brother to use wordpad or any text editor worth of this name

[RupertPupkin]

In DOS/Windows, lines in text files are terminated with a line feed character followed by a carriage return, whereas in UNIX/Linux, lines in text files are terminated with just a line feed character. As giulix mentioned, you can convert your Linux text files to be readable in Windows by using unix2dos:

unix2dos mylinuxfile.txt

[Dan]

Well, that certainly makes more sense.

[Techokami]

Wordpad supports Unicode text files written in Linux just fine.
But yeah, don't get lazy with extensions.

[sailor]

I suspect that his anti-virus didn't like the file without extension or if at work there is a mail filter. I have trouble sending .exe, .com or any other perceived executable while using my work computer, however I have found simply renaming the files to .doc or .txt gets by the mail filter...our IT staff is not the best

I have never run into windows not being able to read txt files of any type

[Dan]

The part of that which concerns me is the fact it deleted the file. A new character flaw of Vista perhaps?


Dan

[Techokami]

Originally Posted by TangledWeb

The part of that which concerns me is the fact it deleted the file. A new character flaw of Vista perhaps?

Doesn't seem right... especially since certain versions of Vista have support for a mode that essentially turns Vista into a UNIX/NT hybrid.

Also, the person trying to read the file is on XP.

Originally Posted by Murrquan

Yesterday I sent a text file that I wrote on Gedit to my brother in Texas, who is using XP but is getting fed up with it.

[Dan]

... So he is!

I'm still just guessing here though. I haven't done anything but avoid XP/Vista for a couple years. In August, I used one (XP) to check the email, but that's about it.


Dan

[Murrquan]

Thanks, everyone! ^.^ I didn't know about these issues, but thanks for explaining them to me. Now I know what to do to be able to send text files.

XP's not too bad, but it updates itself even if you turn updates off, and it keeps sending data back to Microsoft. It also comes with hardly any software out of the box, and seems to have poor hardware support unless you have a driver disk. My brother's stuck with it until Wine and/or Cedega can get FFXI to work, but we're hoping that this will happen soon.