On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 3:54 PM, Eric Wittersheim <eric.wittersh...@gmail.com> wrote: > Is there anyway to enforce a limit (Windows Server 2000 > and 2003) on the length of file names?
Not that I know of. If you find one, let me know, 'cause I got the same problem in different ways. Part of the problem is that not all parts of Windows have the same path/file name length limits. Reportedly NTFS itself and the innards of the NT kernel can handle names on the order of thousands of characters long, but that's mainly academic because the higher-level stuff falls apart much earlier. The Win32 subsystem (which practically everything uses) is limited to 255 characters, I believe. Vital system components -- like Windows Explorer and the shell libraries -- seem to have even shorter limits. One of my favorites is users creating files in their local profile that work just fine, but then the roaming profile sync code pukes trying to sync back to the server. (Though I haven't seen that in a while; it may have been fixed in XP SP2.) Another part of the problem is that path name lengths can vary depending on how the system is "seeing" a file. For example, if I have C:\Company\Shared\Quality\Public\QMSDocs on the server shared as QMSDocs, and the workstations map that share as drive Q:, and then there's Q:\some\really\absurdly\ridiculously\ludicrously\long\path\name\to\a\file.doc, then it may be okay for the mapped path on the workstation, but on the server it will be C:\Company\Shared\Quality\Public\QMSDocs\some\really\absurdly\ridiculously\ludicrously\long\path\name\to\a\file.doc which pushes Explorer over the limit. Result? You can access the files from Explorer on a workstation, but not Explorer on the server. The filesystems typically used on CDs and DVDs have their own limits which are different from all of the above. So one thing that may help the CD archive scenario is to put all the files into an archive format which handles really long file names, like 7-Zip's .7z format. -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
