Microsoft added ReFS, with the main feature being integrity checking. They implemented it, but just did not enable it. How about having seat belt for your data integrity by default and let people turn it off if they want to compromise correctness for performance?

ReFS integrity is off by default. Only metadata integrity is default enabled.

It’s also not visible or changeable in the UI (which is why I assumed they’d done the right thing), which is strange to me, this being Windows. No, you have to drop down into Microsoft’s crappy CLI.

How to check if it’s turned on

Check files in one directory

PS E:\> Get-Item '*' | Get-FileIntegrity

FileName                       Enabled Enforced
--------                       ------- --------
E:\SomeDirectory               False   True
E:\SomeOtherDirectory          False   True
E:\SomeFile.txt                False   True
[...]

Fuck you, Microsoft.

Check recursively

Of course Get-Item doesn’t do recursion. Why would it? That would make sense.

PS E:\> Get-ChildItem -Recurse 'E:\SomeDirectory' | Get-FileIntegrity

FileName                       Enabled Enforced
--------                       ------- --------
E:\SomeDirectory\foo.txt       False   True
[...]

How to enable it

Both commands are needed. The first command sets the new default for the root directory, and the second adds checksums to all existing files and directories.

PS E:\> Get-Item 'E:\' | Set-FileIntegrity -Enable $True
PS E:\> Get-ChildItem -Recurse 'E:\' | Set-FileIntegrity -Enable $True

This will show a lame ASCII progress bar while it’s doing it. I say lame because this is 2017 and Microsoft managed to create PowerShell without 1970’s technology like SIGWINCH or equivalent for actually detecting a window resize. Not just “after the command was started”, mind you, but also if the window changed size before starting the command.

Oh, and run this as Administrator, because Microsoft will not only need that for some files, it’ll actually spit out error messages that do not contain the filename in question.

This is Microsoft’s “new and awesome” CLI, and it doesn’t do what CLI’s have done since the 70’s.

Also this can’t set integrity checking on files marked read-only. Why? Because Microsoft hates you, your data, and your cat.

So how do I trigger a scrub, a check of all checksums?

Ha ha ha, you can’t. Because Microsoft is retarded. They’re going with the bullshit “Oh you don’t need to!”, completely ignoring that what I want to find out is if my physical disks are failing, or have corrupted data.

I guess I could tar up the whole filesystem and send the output to the bitbucket. But oh wait… tar is not included in Windows so I need third party tools.