Windows 10 Anniversary Update and Long File Paths

[Spider99]

Microsoft has finally, in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, "fixed" the limitation of 260 characters for the file path

 

Before i enable this does StableBit already support this or perhaps will in the future as an application has to explicitly support it for it to work?

 

 

 

Quote

Enabling NTFS long paths will allow manifested Win32 applications and Windows Store applications to access paths beyond the normal 260 char limit per node. Enabling this setting will cause the long paths to be accessible within the process.

This actually means that an application has to have the following line in its manifest: <longPathAware>true</longPathAware>

 

Article http://winaero.com/b...-in-windows-10/

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Yes, StableBit DrivePool supports this. 

 

Specifically, there are two times when we deal with files: 

• In the kernel (via the driver itself) which has no practical limitation
• In the service, which uses UNC pathing, which has no practical limiation

 

Just keep in mind that this "fix" may cause unexpected behavior, especially in 32-bit programs. IIRC.

[Spider99]

Good - just wanted to check

 

dont have any long paths yet but good to know its ok if i do

[Kuno]

Wow that is fantastic news

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Good - just wanted to check

 

dont have any long paths yet but good to know its ok if i do

 

Well, to be honest, a majority of 3rd party programs support long paths, because they use the "proper" "UNC" paths, rather than the "Win32 API".  

 

Also, see below. 

 

Wow that is fantastic news

 

Well, not really.  Explorer has been the issue for a long while.  It doesn't like supporting long paths, even when 3rd party apps like Total Commander and Directory Opus do. 

 

The issue is API compatibility.  Changing the above setting can cause issues with older (and possibly 32 bit, IIRC) programs. 

[gj80]

I'm so glad I noticed this topic! The character limit has plagued me since I first started using Windows computers... I rely on folder structure a lot at home and at work, and I bump into it constantly. My clients bump into it quite often as well, and they end up losing data inadvertently - it's a nightmare. I understand it could cause application compatibility issues when directly referencing those locations, but at least Explorer can support addressing these files now. Without explorer itself supporting it, any under-the-hood changes before have been kind of moot for most applications.

 

I was relieved to know that DrivePool itself has supported extended paths previously, though - I had opened a topic about that question since I knew it extended the path length for existing data on each disk since it's stored in specially-named folders.