Does XP Support EXFAT File Format?

Has this ever happened to you? Following precautionary backup practice, I got a new Seagate 500GB SSD to copy files from my ~ 3 year old Seagate 500GB USB HDD. I have XP on my old Dell desktop and used it to format the SSD with NTFS. I then copied all of my document files to the SSD and was then able to work on and save any changes to any file. But when I later tried to use the SSD on pcs at two different public libraries running Windows 10 I was unable to save any changes to the files because MS Word on Windows 10 said it is a read only file. I tried doing the same with multiple files but same thing happened.

But I never had any such problem with my Seagate HDD, which also was originally formatted with NTFS.

When I called Seagate support he said that he first would have recommended downloading a "paragon" driver to the library computer, which would have completely fixed the problem-but Admin rights would have blocked me from doing so. Instead, he said I could reformat the SSD using EXFAT, which will make the drive file compatible with any Windows or Mac computer.

Luckily, I have no changes to any files that I need to save on that drive it being wiped during reformatting is no problem, save for the loss of non-reusable space from wiping, which always happens with SSDs.

So while he had no explanation for why my NTFS formatted HDD was always file compatible with Windows 10 and the latest version of MS Word, at least this looks like a quick and good fix.

I'm not home at the moment so I can't check to see if XP offers EXFAT as a drive formatting option. The Seagate tech said that XP does offer EXFAT but that I'd have to go into Device Manager (?) to select it.

Please provide the steps to format the SSD with EXFAT. Thanks.

 

https://www.quora.com/How-to-format-a-drive-of-exFAT-in-Windows-XP?share=1

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2148358-formatting-a-ssd-as-ntfs-or-exfat

some good info on the above, I personally have never used exfat so I do not have any direct experience, I always format everything in NTFS,

 

I do recall that at the public library I was able to use Windows 10 Explorer to reformat a DVD, so I should be able to reformat this SSD. Presumably, EXFAT will be one of the choices. So I guess I can reformat it there.

 

Windows XP requires update KB955704 to be installed to support exFAT.

Description of the exFAT file system driver update package
Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2, Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3

Unfortunately, you can no longer get the needed update from Microsoft.

However, it is available from the Wayback Machine.

Windows XP (32-bit) download: WindowsXP-KB955704-x86-ENU.exe

ExFAT Windows XP Nederlands (Dutch) and English

 

https://archive.org/details/windows-xp-exfat-driver-kb955704-x86

also can download from above

 

You can also point to a WSUS server containing the XP Updates, there's a video by i430VX on this (I wish there was a proper text guide).

Pretty sure exFAT support was delivered via WU

 

So your problem is exactly why I still use FAT32 on all external drives--it is universally compatible with almost any os, new or old. And you don't run into weird 'permissions' issues like can happen on NTFS.

And for the record, exfat has its own compatibility issues, so I avoid it. You can easily reformat any exfat drive, even sdxc sd cards that come formatted exfat. Just use the freeware fat32 formatter here that's so good, it comes with seagate's drives: http://ridgecrop.co.uk/fat32format.htm

 

Yep, and every car audio player I've seen can only read FAT32, not NTFS. FAT32 supports up to 2TB so no size problem, and if you really want to copy a 4gb+ file, just RAR (or ZIP) it with the "split into multiple volumes" option.

(Remember that XP's built-in format will refuse to format 32GB+ FAT32, because they really want to sell you on NTFS, so you have to use a 3rd-party tool such as any partition manager.)