The research reverse engineers Windows Data Deduplication, a storage optimization technology that breaks files into unique chunks stored in a shared Chunk Store to save space. It explains key components including the REPARSE_POINT attribute, Stream File, Chunk Lookup (Ckhr), and Chunk Store container files. The study details how files are chunked using content-defined chunking to avoid boundary-shift problems and how Windows reconstructs files by referencing chunks. The author created DedupInspector, an open-source tool that automates offline recovery of deduplicated files by extracting and reassembling chunks from the Chunk Store. This work is a technical exploration and tool release, not a report of a vulnerability or active threat.

No direct security impact or exploit is described in the provided information. The research and tool facilitate offline recovery of deduplicated files, which may aid digital forensics and incident response but do not represent a vulnerability or active threat to Windows Data Deduplication itself.

No mitigation or patch is applicable as this is a research and tooling effort without an identified vulnerability or exploit. No action is required to address a security risk based on the provided data.