Upcoming Windows 11 Update to Resolve Limitations with FAT32 File System

Despite Windows 11 being a modern operating system, there are still remnants of older operating systems that can hold you back somewhat. One of the biggest ones, an ancient arbitrary limitation to FAT32 partitions, has finally been corrected.

Microsoft is finally removing the 32GB size limit for FAT32 partitions in Windows 11. The change was revealed in a blog post detailing the latest Windows 11 Canary test build. The 32GB limit has been in place for nearly 30 years, despite FAT supporting volumes up to 2TB. The limit was originally set during the development of Windows 95, and former Windows developer Dave Plummer admitted it was an “arbitrary choice” made at the time.

The removal of the limit will initially only apply to formatting disks from the command line using the ‘format’ command. The existing format dialog box will continue to have the 32GB limit for now, although Microsoft might choose to change it there as well eventually. Windows has long been able to read FAT32 partitions up to 2TB in size, but you couldn’t really create them within the OS without third-party tools. So it wasn’t really a limitation on the operating system, but rather a decision that was taken for some reason.

While the partition limit is being extended, there is still a 4GB size limit on individual files stored on a FAT32 volume. This is, however, an inherent limitation with the FAT32 file system, and not really something Microsoft can do a lot about. FAT32 is not as widely used as alternatives like exFAT, but it is still used by many older devices that require USB drives or SD cards formatted with FAT32.

The change will come in an upcoming update to Windows. If you need to format larger drives as FAT32 now, there are several third-party applications for formatting larger drives as FAT32.

Source: Microsoft via The Verge