The file name(s) would too long for the destination folder

Hi All,

I am experiencing problem,, when trying to copy folders and files to a further drive, as certain filed are not copied, but a message is received saying : "The file name(s) in the destination would be too long for the destination folders. You can shorten the file name, or try a location that has a shorter path".
Both suggestions given in the message do not practically work for me / wil be impractical, as this involves more than 100 files and folders. Previous suggestions i found on some blogs,where to download a windows update from Nov 2014, and to install a hotfix for this problem (for windows 7 though only !). Both did not work. Please give further advise as available, e.g. is there a similar hotfix for windows 8 or windows 8.1 ?

Thanks for your time and help,

B R

Historically files were named in an 8.3 convention, 8 characters for the name, the period/dot and up to 3 characters for the extension. With the advent of Windows 95 we got LFN/Long File Names that could be up to 255 characters. With the 8.3 the root of a drive could hold up to 512 files, adding Directories [renamed to Folders since Win95] allowed many more files to be in the Folders. With the LFN system the total files allowed in the root of a drive was reduced to about half because both types of file names had to be saved. The limit on LFN length applies to both the root of a drive and a Folder on the drive. All this is pretty basic, can get more complicated.

Might look at this MSDN page:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/li...247(v=vs.85).aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

Hi Berton,

thanks for your reply with the technical baseline info, as well as the quite informative link - i will try to look at some of the mentioned methods there, though most do not appear that straightforward to me as a regular pc user on first sight.
The most "easy" method seems to be to reduce the total amount of figures in your extended filename - can be done, but work intensive.
I still find it puzzling, that Microsoft did as yet apparently not resolve this issue in one of the advanced newer windows versions, don't think it can't be done.
Do Mac and Linux operating systems have the same flaw ?

Regards,

B R

Do Mac and Linux operating systems have the same flaw ?

Click to expand...

It really is not a flaw but just the way it is. I've had to deal with the 8.3 limitation since I got my first computer in '92 with MS-DOS 5 and Windows 3.1. I have seen it in Mac OS X a couple of times but not yet in Linux Mint. The use of LFN both helped in saving better descriptions in the file names but also frustrating when they get too long.

You will have to become creative at shortening the parent directory & child directories of each major branch.
For example: one of my parent directories is APPS. within APPS are WXP, W8. within WXP are: Cyberlink, Acronis, Adobe, and many many downloaded zips and EXE installs, some had to be renamed to shorten. I hope this too-long path-name&file-name situation does not impede your image backups of OS/programs and data partitions.