File extension problem

Question

Hello there everyone... My company is equipped with mac's an pc's and a pc server using windows 2000 server. The server 'died' and we bought a new one with windows sbs 2008, our files that were created by our mac computers were stored on the old server so we copied them back to the new one. The problem is that now when we try to access them some files that don't have extensions we can not open them as we don't know what they are, i.e in the same folder I had files that were tiff,jpeg,quark,pdf when I try to access them there are no extensions so I don't know with what program to open each file. These files are grey or black and are reffered to as Unix Executable File. Is there a way to get the mac systems to re-read the files correctly??? Our mac os is 10.4 and 10.5 and our server uses Windows SBS 2008!

Answer 1

I'd be worried about these files. You may have lost metadata as BD suggests.
Maybe your server administrator should look at copying mac file data or how to turn on the serving of Mac files. ( I'd guess it was an option in windows 2000. )
Can't you take a guess from the name what the application would have been?
Start the appropriate application & use file > open.
There is also the Terminal file command which will look inside a file & take a best guess at the contents of the file. Many files have an identifier in the first four characters of the file telling what type of data the file contains.
Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal
mac $ file /Users/mac/Desktop/ciruit.rtf 
/Users/mac/Desktop/ciruit.rtf: Rich Text Format data, version 1, Apple Macintosh
mac $ file /Users/mac/Desktop/Lunch\ picture.JPG 
/Users/mac/Desktop/Lunch picture.JPG: JPEG image data, EXIF standard
mac $ 
what you do is type file followed by a space. No need to type out the file path &name. Drop the file you wish to identify onto the terminal window. Press return after the drop.
you can also list the entire contents of a folder by the command:
file *
What you would do in this case is to use the cd command to move to the folder you want:
cd
then drag the folder you want to see & drop it on the terminal window. Press return after the drop.
Here is an overview of the terminal commands. Lets assume that your account has a short user name of mac.
Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal
#How to list all of your disks.
# The ls command is for list
mac $ ls /Volumes/
Audio CD       Macintosh-HD   Spotless       Tiger-ext
mac $ 
# Let's say your flash drive is named Spotless
# cd is change directory
mac $ cd /Volumes/Spotless
# pwd is print working directory
mac $ pwd
/Volumes/Spotless
mac $ 
# The ls command is for list
# l is long
# F is type of file where / is directory
mac $ ls -lF
total 134704
-rw-r--r--     1 mac  staff     64560 Mar  3  2009 A-picture-of-Youpi-key.png
drwxr-xr-x    83 mac  staff      2822 Nov  7 14:52 Applescript files/
drwxrwxrwx    12 mac  staff       408 Dec 13  2008 Christmas Cards/
drwxr-xr-x     9 mac  staff       306 Dec 21 17:39 Christmas Cards 2009/
... trimmed ...
What does all this mean?
drwxrwxrwx
d = directory
r = read
w = write
x = executeable program
drwxrwxrwx
 |  |  |
 |  |   all other users not in first two types
 |  |  
 |  group
 |  
 owner
# l is long
# a is all to show hidden files & folders
mac $ ls -lFa
total 134736
drwxr-xr-x    41 mac   staff      1496 Dec 22 17:11 .
drwxrwxrwt     8 root  admin       272 Dec 24 13:55 ..
-rwxrwxrwx     1 mac   staff     15364 Dec 23 12:52 .DS_Store*
drwx------     4 mac   staff       136 Jan 22  2009 .Spotlight-V100
drwxrwxrwt     5 mac   staff       170 Sep 14 16:36 .TemporaryItems
d-wx-wx-wx     4 mac   staff       136 Dec 31  1969 .Trashes
-rw-r--r--     1 mac  staff     64560 Mar  3  2009 A-picture-of-Youpi-key.png
drwxr-xr-x    83 mac   staff      2822 Nov  7 14:52 Applescript files
drwxrwxrwx    12 mac   staff       408 Dec 13  2008 Christmas Cards
drwxr-xr-x     9 mac   staff       306 Dec 21 17:39 Christmas Cards 2009
... trimmed ...
# mv is move or rename
mv -i the-name the-new-name
# You can just rename the file back to what it was with mv command.
mv -i old-name new-name
Here is what these commands mean:
cd is change directory
pwd is a print working directory
ls is list
sudo is Super user do
mv is move or rename
For cryptic comments, you can always uses the manual command which is man. For example:
man mv
# Type the letter q to quit.
I noticed that you had spaces in your filenames or directories. You need to escape them. See examples:
mac $ ls -l ~/"see it"
-rw-r--r-- 1 mac staff 3171 Oct 26 23:38 /Users/mac/see it
mac $
mac $ cd /Users/mac/Desktop/ttt\ html\ copy/
Do you know about tabing? Type in a few letters of a name then press the tab key. The computer will type out the rest of the name if it is unique.
Robert