Ext2Fsd is an open source Linux ext2/ext3 file system driver created for Windows systems.

Ext2fsd is much stable for normal works, with writing access enabled. I use it on my own computer all along. The performance comes to be an issue when there's heavy I/O operations. That's the thing to do next step.

If you really need very heave writing i/O jobs, I strongly recommend you to
create an ext2 partition as a swap between windows and linux systems.

What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]

· ext3 journal check and replay implemented. If the journal is not empty ext2fsd will replay the journal and make the file system consistent as an ext2 file system.
· Flexible-inode-size supported. recent Linux are using 256-byte inode that fails 0.45 and before to show all the files.
· FIXME: 2 minor issues that mislead EditPlus. EditPlus is always trying to open any file with directory_only flag set to judge whether the target is a directory or file, when the file isn't a directory, the open request should be denied. But Ext2Fsd 0.45 and before doesn't. Another issue is that ext2 file time on disk has different precision against windows (1 second vs 100 nano second), which causes EditPlus thinks the file is being changed.
· FIXME: a severe bug (likely happen on win2k system) which cause dirty caches missed and slow down the whole system.
· Many other minor changes: bulk block allocation/release, possible inode allocation dead-loop when all inodes are used out, Ext2Mgr win2k support, other performance improvements.