I reinstalled windows 7 (activated), can i restore files from a clone?

Make an image.

Imaging with free Macrium

antonio2501 said:

i had a problem with my windows activating on my old windows 7 account. it activated with a new account. can i make an image of my old account (that doesn't work) and apply it to the new account that works.

You have to explain that a bit more. E.g. what are those "accounts".

antonio2501 said:

it tells me that there are files that are too long to transfer.

files too long (whatever that may be)? Or filenames too long?
Is it the source or destination that's too long?

antonio2501 said:

sorry file names. i'm never this bad. sorry. files names are too long. i found an app on the microsoft site. i was just wondering if there was an easier way to do that. i was thinking it was a problem with the HDD format (ntsf). if it's a matter of renaming, that's going to take a while.

You're copying a source folder and all stuff underneath it? Which folder?
You're copying to which folder?

antonio2501 said:

sorry file names. i'm never this bad. sorry. files names are too long. i found an app on the microsoft site. i was just wondering if there was an easier way to do that. i was thinking it was a problem with the HDD format (ntsf). if it's a matter of renaming, that's going to take a while.

   Information

Actually, the maximum filename + path length can be up to 32767 characters as defined by the NTFS specifications, 255 characters being the "branch" limit (each subfolder shouldn't have more than 255 characters). For some reason, the Windows shell is stupid.
Anyways, I don't think this is a bug, but a lacking feature.

See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/177665/EN-US/
Win32 programs are limited to a 256-character string size limit because of the MAX_PATH variable.
The MAX_PATH constant is defined for Windows32 API in the WINDRES.H resp. DEFINES.H file as '#define MAX_PATH (260)', which includes the drive letter, colon, and root directory characters.

See http://blogs.msdn.com/junfeng/archive/2006/02/20/535875.aspx
Handling long path is hard. Win32 has a file name length limit of MAX_PATH (which is defined as 260). People are looking for ways to extend the limit, as the file system supports a file name up to 32767 characters long. Apparently this has huge AppCompat implication. As we can see from this example, current applications may already have difficulty handling file path within the MAX_PATH limit, let alone file name with 32767 characters long.

Keep in mind that the length of 32767 characters is in fact less then this range because there are stored unicode characters, which may have a size up to three or four 8-bit sequence-characters for one unicode character.