The NTFS file system includes features that support the Interix file system; the file-allocation table (FAT) file system does not. You must install and use Windows Services for UNIX on an NTFS file system to have access to the full range of Interix features.
The Interix file-system features include the following:
File names are case-sensitive. For example, the system can distinguish Temp, temp, and TEMP as different files.
On a FAT system or across a network, file names are case-insensitive, although case is preserved when creating new file names.
On all file systems including FAT, file-name matching using shell wildcards such as ? or * is case sensitive. This feature is specific to Interix and how wildcards are implemented on shells.
File names can contain any of the characters specified by the POSIX portable character set. In Interix, file names can contain any character except the following:
\ / " < >
However, the Windows operating system and applications does not recognize the following characters in file names:
\ / : * ? ! | " < > control characters
The directory name $$psxjunk is reserved for use by the Interix subsystem.
Real user and group names appear as the file owner and file group when list a directory in long format (ls -l). Files can be owned by a group, not only a user.
On a FAT file system, all files are owned by the user Everyone and the group Everyone.