DIR File Extension

What is the .DIR file type?

Primarily, the .dir filename extension is tied up with the Adobe Director Project (DIR) file type and format. Adobe (formerly, Macromedia) Director is a commercial application for authoring Shockwave (part of Flash) content and creating interactive multimedia files, playable with Adobe Shockwave Player. To store its project files, each version of Adobe Director uses a proprietary binary format, and the formats used by different versions are not compatible (i.e., older .dir files must be converted to be used with a newer version).

A .dir file is a Shockwave movie or interactive web application project authored with Adobe Director. It is a working 'source-code' file to save the current work progress. Before publishing, any .dir project must be produced into a Shockwave movie file (.dcr, Director Compressed Resource). Playable with Adobe Shockwave Player, DCR files can be distributed and/or embedded into web pages.

Quite differently, the .dir extension also applies to directory names, in particular denoting the "lost.dir" directory automatically created on disk volumes of various Android-driven devices. The "lost.dir" directory is the destination place for all damaged, lost-and-recovered, and otherwise orphaned files collected during the filesystem self-check and self-repair actions. With the use of special utilities, data can be partially recovered from the "lost.dir" directory.

Additionally, the .dir extension is encountered with directory indicator files ("mscreate.dir") automatically created inside every directory made during installation of many Microsoft software products. Such "mscreate.dir" files are hidden, have a zero size, and only serve as flags for installer-made directories that will be removed during uninstallation.

Steel-Belted Radius Carrier, a commercial RADIUS network authentication and security management system by Juniper Networks, uses the .dir extension to denote its Directed Realm Configuration (.dir) file type. A DIR file is a text-based listing of sectioned options that uses an INI-like syntax to configure custom authentication and/or logging methods. A .dir file is normally named after the realm it is supposed to configure.

Besides, the .dir extension is utilized to denote the binary ECOCLIMAP Database (.dir) file format. ECOCLIMAP is a global landscape surface database that discriminates among several types of surfaces, ecosystems, vegetation, etc. and is used for climate studies and meteorological research. A binary ECOCLIMAP .dir file stores bitmap data, representing the covered land surface with 1-km resolution. DIR files are always accompanied by their respective header files (.hdr).

Lastly, the .dir extension is also conventionally assigned to service text-based files that are used in the process of building Debian-style software packages (.deb) for GNU/Linux OS'es. A .dir file in this case serves as an instruction to the packager tool to create an empty directory at the path specified in the file.

Software to open or convert DIR files

synedra View Personal by synedra it GmbH

 

GameLoad by Ant Media, s. r. o.

 

Director

 

Notepad++

 

Procomm Plus Connection Manager

 

Free File Viewer Pro

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