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fsutil sparse

Manages sparse files. Windows commands reference

On Windows

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Windows

from the Windows commands reference, CC BY 4.0

Manages sparse files. A sparse file is a file with one or more regions of unallocated data in it. A program sees these unallocated regions as containing bytes with a zero value and that there's no disk space representing these zeros. When a sparse file is read, allocated data is returned as stored, and unallocated data is returned, by default, as zeros, in accordance with the C2 security requirement specification. Sparse file support allows data to be deallocated from anywhere in the file.

fsutil sparse [queryflag] <filename>
fsutil sparse [queryrange] <filename>
fsutil sparse [setflag] <filename>
fsutil sparse [setrange] <filename> <beginningoffset> <length>
fsutil sparse setflag c:\temp\sample.txt
queryflagQueries sparse.
queryrangeScans a file and searches for ranges that may contain nonzero data.
setflagMarks the indicated file as sparse.
setrangeFills a specified range of a file with zeros.
<filename>Specifies the full path to the file including the file name and extension, for example C:\documents\filename.txt.
<beginningoffset>Specifies the offset within the file to mark as sparse.
<length>Specifies the length of the region in the file to be marked as sparse (in bytes).

See also

fsutil