Extended Attributes (EAs) are widely used in the Workplace Shell to record information about the attributes of the WPS objects. In general, information about an object is stored by the object itself. Thus a file stores information about its class and the location of the icon used to represent it, while the folder stores the position of the icon within it.
On an HPFS partition, Extended Attributes are stored in a special, hidden area, close to the files themselves. On a FAT file system, Extended Attributes for files and directories are stored in a hidden file in the root directory of each FAT partition.. This file is named "EA_DATA. SF".
EAs for the Workplace Shell are stored in the root directory of any logical disk accessed by it, in a hidden file called "WP_ROOT. SF". This file holds specific information about setup of the desktop. It is updated after the disk is accessed by any WPS object, such as the Drives folder.
EAs for the LAN independent shell are stored in the root directory of any logical disk accessed through LAN utilities, such as the LAN Server folder, in a hidden file called "WP_SHARE. SF". This file is updated when changes are made to the logical disk by programs which make up the LAN independent shell.
However, changes which are made to this disk from a WPS program are stored in the "WP_ROOT. SF" file. For example, this would happen if a user accessed the disk by issuing a "NET USE" command and then used the Drives folder to work with it.