Joliet (file system)

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Optical disc authoring

Optical disc Optical disc image Recorder hardware Authoring software Recording technologies Recording modes Packet writing
Optical media types
Laserdisc Compact Disc/CD-ROM: CD-R, CD-RW DVD: DVD-R, DVD-R DL, DVD+R, DVD+R DL, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD+RW DL, DVD-RAM Blu-ray Disc: BD-R, BD-RE HD DVD: HD DVD-R
Standards
Rainbow Books File systems ISO 9660 Joliet Rock Ridge Amiga extensions to Rock Ridge El Torito Apple ISO9660 Extensions Universal Disk Format Mount Rainier

Joliet is the name of an extension to the ISO 9660 file system. It has been specified and endorsed by Microsoft and has been supported by all versions of its Windows OS since Windows 95 and Windows NT. Its primary focus is the relaxation of the filename restrictions inherent with full ISO 9660 compliance.

Joliet accomplishes this by supplying an additional set of filenames (up to 64 Unicode characters in length) to be encoded in UCS-2. These filenames are stored in a special supplementary header that is safely ignored by ISO 9660-compliant software, thus preserving backward compatibility.

Most current PC operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and FreeBSD, are able to read Joliet-formatted media, thus allowing exchange of files between those operating systems even if non-Roman characters are involved (such as Arabic, Japanese or Cyrillic), which was formerly not possible with plain ISO 9660-formatted media. Usually, disc-creation software has to be used to create such Joliet-compliant file systems, written then to CD-recordable media.