My file names and paths are not too long DOS TRUENCATE

My files are obviously not to long to be on my source so why are they too long to be on my destination ?

I want to copy folders as they are and not modify them. These paths dont have any problem existing untel I try to copy and then guess what. they suddenly are too long or their paths are to long to copy.
does anyone understand why ?
Why is it they exist ok untel I go to copy them and why doesn't windows just truncate them as dos used to do ?
DOS used to do this thing where it put a ~1 ~2 on any thing that was too long.

I am copying files from windows 7 to a 4T external usb drive. Does Sync back free have a option to do something with these. I will try it next at least it will let me see what dum files wont copy.

I aim to fing out why these problems happen. I just don't get why I cant make a folder copy.

Thanks

Hi DonM123,

The path length is the total size (in characters) of filename plus drive letter plus directory path to the file. In Windows OS this is set to 260 characters. And this is the reason why you cannot copy or move your files with long pathnames.

However, the NTFS file system allows pathnames of 32,767 characters.

Windows 10 Users can Enable NTFS Long Paths to get around this problem.

Windows 7 Users have to either Rename the File, or use SUBST from a CMD Prompt, to shorten the Pathname.

Why does windows allow the file name - path to exist if it can not exist. ? Windows knows its too long so why does windows wait until its time to back them up. Why doesn't windows just refuse to allow me to make the file path too long in the first place ?
DOS used to truncate files and make them shorter. Maybe if I used the Dos prompt I could find a switch for that.

Unicode applications can create and use paths up to 32,767 characters. This is useful to them. But for historic and practical considerations some parts of the system have more restrictive limits - 260 characters. Many applications, including new ones, were written for these limits. Windows explorer imposes the lower limit to protect these applications from long paths they are not prepared to handle. Bad things happen in applications presented with such long paths.

Try saving your files to a higher directory.
I have 500k+ of replacement files/folders & to save them with their original folder/filenames I saved them 1st level, i.e. C:, D:, etc.
Each subdirectory down restricts the size of your filenames

My example:
D:\SURT_Replacement_Files_&_Folders\amd64_acpi.inf_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7601.24056_none_810ed765fde3f9be\acpi.sys

iko22 said:

Hi DonM123,

The path length is the total size (in characters) of filename plus drive letter plus directory path to the file. In Windows OS this is set to 260 characters. And this is the reason why you cannot copy or move your files with long pathnames.

Click to expand...

That is correct. As a simple example c:\folder\file.txt isn't 7 characters long, it is 18. A long line of folders and nested subfolders will take up that limitation. As a further example c:\folder1\folder2\folder3\folder4\folder5\folder6\file.txt is 59 characters. Removing some of those folders in the path will decrease the length.

iko22 said:

The path length is the total size (in characters) of filename plus drive letter plus directory path to the file. In Windows OS this is set to 260 characters.

Click to expand...

FYI: All names have to have a null terminator at the end. Normally only the computer sees this end marker but it counts as a character so there are really only 259 characters available.