Ext2IFS is a freeware

Freeware

Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...

 Installable File System

Installable File System

The Installable File System is a filesystem API in IBM OS/2 and Microsoft Windows that enables the operating system to recognize and load drivers for file systems...

 for Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 that provides support for reading and writing the ext2

Ext2

The ext2 or second extended filesystem is a file system for the Linux kernel. It was initially designed by Rémy Card as a replacement for the extended file system ....

 and ext3

Ext3

The ext3 or third extended filesystem is a journaled file system that is commonly used by the Linux kernel. It is the default file system for many popular Linux distributions, including Debian...

 file systems that are typically used by Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

. According to the author, it is handy for users with a dual boot

Dual boot

Multi-boot or Multi-booting is the act of installing multiple operating systems on a computer, and being able to choose which one to boot when starting the computer. The term dual-booting refers to the common configuration of exactly two operating systems...

 configuration to transfer files between the two operating systems.

Features

Ext2IFS allows Windows users to mount ext2/ext3, and in some cases, ext4 drives to a windows drive letter with full read and write support, just like a native partition using NTFS

NTFS

NTFS is the standard file system of Windows NT, including its later versions Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, and Windows 7....

.

Drawbacks

Ext2IFS does not support an inode size above 128 bytes. This can be inconvenient for linux users wishing to access their linux drives on Windows, as the default inode size of many modern distributions has been 256 bytes for some time. Other installable drivers or the software explore2fs

Explore2fs

Explore2fs is an Explorer-like program for Microsoft Windows that is capable of reading ext2 and ext3 hard disk partitions. This can be especially convenient if one has a dual-boot system...

do not have this drawback.