Windows 9x and differing-case filenames

[idalton at ferret.phonewave.net]

Peter Tyers had the same problem last July. I found his post in the list
archives (search by Google) but did not see any responses. I've
contacted him personally by email but have not heard a reply so far.

http://samba.cadcamlab.org/lists/samba/Jul2000/00135.html

I'm having the same problem and need the same kind of
solution. Basically I have shares from my Linux servers where I have to
have files/directories with names that differ in case, such as ~/mail
and ~/Mail, etc, and I need to be able to access them from the windows
98 machine.

The first thing that came to mind to try was name mangling, but it
didn't do what I had expected. I was expecting that it would do
something like:

~/mail -> ~/mail
~/Mail -> ~/mail (<unique string> mangle 1)

The only name mangling option that appeared to actually do anything from
the windows machine was 'case sensitive = yes' and that simply prevented
windows from browsing into the shares. Peter mentions that this is
because windows (but not NT) sends the browse path in UPPER CASE.


So what can be done?
Is there a known patch to windows 98 to make it use default case and not
UPPER CASE?
Is or can be the mangling I had at first expected implemented?

What can't be done:
Rename directories on the server. Sorry, but programs are expecting the
two directories, plus there are tonnes of regular files that differ only
in case.
Leave case sensitivity off. Access seems to be by the first such file in
the directory, and overwrites and deletions affect ALL named files.

Yoiks!
-- Ferret