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File name too long fixes didn't work

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BadHairDay

PCHF Member
Jul 26, 2023
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#1
Hi,

I bought the Win 11 laptop new a month ago. I'm trying to download a lifetimes worth of data. I've been using computers for 40 years, and my data has hundreds to thousands of folders, and tens of thousands of documents. I was able to upload all of it onto a 250 GB thumb drive just fine. When I try to download it onto this computer, I get "file name too long" errors, but not just a few. About a third of what I want to download won't download because of this error.

The first thing I did was get into reg edit

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem

And changed the LongPathsEnabled value to 1.

Then I also did the Windows Memory Diagnostic, that was fine.

Then I did the SFC ScanNow, and that was fine.

All that was based on this video, , which has stupid music, but the creator seemed to know what he was doing based on the list of videos I saw on his channel.


This did not fix the problem.

So then I downloaded and installed GP Edit (from another video's directions) and then:

Administrative Templates \ system \ filesystem \ enable windows long file path

and I enabled it.

This did not fix the problem.

What should I do next?

Thank you for your time and patience and help.

Sincerely,

Steve
 
#2
g'day and welcome to the forum. :)

Windows has a 256 character limit on a filename location, which includes the complete folder path.
you could either use the Universal naming convention (UNC) and use a command prompt to copy those files, or eventually, you are simply going to have to shorten their name.

on your USB storage, you'd have something like this (let's say the device shows as X:\ drive);
x:\parent folder\a subfolder\another subfolder\more subfolders\long subfolder name\more and more names\your file.txt

instead of coping everything from the parent folder onwards, you will need to go a subfolder way down the list and select that and copy it to the new location.
yes, it'll be a hands on, manual exercise. selecting subfolders from each parent folder until the size limit doesn't become a constraint.

I have had to use UNC on my daily backup program, as below;
1690418349084.png

but you could do the same via the XCOPY command in a batch script.
 
#4
Thanks for the explanation.

On the face of it, my failure to paste the files doesn't make sense because I uploaded them onto the thumb drive fine.

But then, I put everything into one folder. So, I am taking away the top level folder. I'm also shortening the names of any other 2nd or 3rd level folders. I'll see how that goes.

Yes, I remember the days of a 8 byte file name. But it seems like it would be the easiest thing in the world to up that limit to 8KB nowadays.

Linux probably allows that, amirite? But I'm not smart enough to learn a whole new system, so I'll just start shortening some folder names and see how it goes.

Thank you so much. I thought for sure it was a computer error. Nope! User error. I should have made that my screen name coming here...

Errorful But Still Grateful For Your Help,

Steve
 
#5
Is there a limit on the number of folders?

If I name my top level folder "A" and then the first subfolder "B" and then the next sub-subfolder "C" am I going to hit some other limit of the number of folders? Or is it just the TOTAL file path name has to be under 256 bytes. Does that include the slashes? The file name itself?

If I am going to get into the details of this game, I should know the rules.

I'm happy to do some reading or watch a video if posting a link is easier for you.
 
#7
the limit is the number of chars - which includes EVERYTHING in the folder path - so the letters/numbers, the : and \ and . are all counted.

luckily there is no limit on the number of folders or files that can be copied, just the length of is files full location.
 
#8
All the OS's from the last year were Win 11. And for years prior to that, Win 10. All windows going back to Win 95. And even 3.0 before that. I was enough of a fan boy that I went to a local Win 98 release party, and there were over 100 geeks and freaks there.
 
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