windows sucks...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike
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M

Mike

for some reason, I have some files previously located at:

c:\mydocs\mywork\myprograms\..........

which were long path names;

and now I want to move them to:

c:\document and settings\Peter\My Works\mywork_10_2007\myprograms\..........

And it didn't allow me to do it...

It says there is a 260 character limit...

But there are tens of thousands files that I want to reorganize... I don't
want to shorten their paths and names...

Anyway I can do it?

Stupid windows, stupid 260 limit!!!
 
Stupid windows, stupid 260 limit!!!
Click to expand...

Since you created the C:\mydocs\... folders why don't you create
C:\mywork_10_2007\ to fit your needs.

And it's a lot easier to get help if you're not so dang negative.

--

Leythos
- Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.
- Calling an illegal alien an "undocumented worker" is like calling a
drug dealer an "unlicensed pharmacist"
(e-mail address removed) (remove 999 for proper email address)
 
Mike said:
for some reason, I have some files previously located at:

c:\mydocs\mywork\myprograms\..........

which were long path names;

and now I want to move them to:

c:\document and settings\Peter\My
Works\mywork_10_2007\myprograms\..........

And it didn't allow me to do it...

It says there is a 260 character limit...

But there are tens of thousands files that I want to reorganize... I don't
want to shorten their paths and names...

Anyway I can do it?

Stupid windows, stupid 260 limit!!!
Click to expand...

There are three ways:
- Put your information where it belongs: Into your files, not into
your folder/file names.
- Map a share that points into the middle of the excessively long path.
- Create a substituted drive letter that points into the middle of the
excessively long path.
 
FYI, Would like to note that in my experience...
While mapping some path to some drive letter will appear like a shortcut
on the outside; Windows will still use the full path on the inside, and
calculate the path length with this full name.

If your path is 50 characters long, and your filename is 210 long or
whatever combination thereof, Windows might let you save the file, but it
might also start to throw all sorts of errors at you.
Such as being unable to log off, unable to move/copy/paste/rename/delete
said file(s), 'Can not find' errors, etc.

I have seen these errors on user accounts in my organisation; Users would
just hit Enter when Microsoft Word 2003 suggested a filename, resulting
in..
Filenames which touched or even exceeded the full path length limit in
Windows 2000 Pro and Windows XP Pro.
As these user's home folders are redirected to a server with a shorter
path, I could see how logically it would be allowed to be saved.

The only resolution I have found for my situation was, to browse to the
offending file(s) from the fileserver itself, and rename the files from
there to a very short name under 20 characters, then all would be fine.
How a user would do this on a standalone machine, I can not imagine.
 
Assume that you have a long path of the following form:

d:\aaaaaaaaa\bbbbbbbbb\ . .\mmmmmmmmmm\ . . \yyyyyyyyyyyyyy\zzzzzzzzzzz

Now assume that you set up a substitution like so:

subst Q: d:\d:\aaaaaaaaa\bbbbbbbbb\ . . . \mmmmmmmmmm

Windows will now be able to access files and folders on drive
Q: of a combined length of up to 260 characters. I recommend
you give it a try - it works very nicely. The same applies if you
create a share instead of a substituted drive letter.
 
Mike said:
for some reason, I have some files previously located at:

c:\mydocs\mywork\myprograms\..........

which were long path names;

and now I want to move them to:

c:\document and settings\Peter\My
Works\mywork_10_2007\myprograms\..........
And it didn't allow me to do it...

It says there is a 260 character limit...

But there are tens of thousands files that I want to reorganize... I
don't want to shorten their paths and names...

Anyway I can do it?

Stupid windows, stupid 260 limit!!!
Click to expand...

All these negative vibes, man...

Basic rule of physics: You can't get ten pounds of crap in a five pound bag.

Using a different bag (Mac, Unix, etc.) won't help either.

You've just got too much crap.
 
Good suggestion, I will try this when I have a chance.
The current setup in my organisation issues
"CMD /c NET USE U: \\server\users\department\firstname.lastname\my
documents /y" from a KiXstart script running at logon from Windows Server
2003.
Which quickly runs up to funny business when some application disregards
the 260 path length limit.






Assume that you have a long path of the following form:

d:\aaaaaaaaa\bbbbbbbbb\ . .\mmmmmmmmmm\ . .
\yyyyyyyyyyyyyy\zzzzzzzzzzz

Now assume that you set up a substitution like so:

subst Q: d:\d:\aaaaaaaaa\bbbbbbbbb\ . . . \mmmmmmmmmm

Windows will now be able to access files and folders on drive
Q: of a combined length of up to 260 characters. I recommend
you give it a try - it works very nicely. The same applies if you
create a share instead of a substituted drive letter.
Click to expand...
 
Mike said:
for some reason, I have some files previously located at:

c:\mydocs\mywork\myprograms\..........

which were long path names;

and now I want to move them to:

c:\document and settings\Peter\My Works\mywork_10_2007\myprograms\..........

And it didn't allow me to do it...

It says there is a 260 character limit...

But there are tens of thousands files that I want to reorganize... I don't
want to shorten their paths and names...

Anyway I can do it?

Stupid windows, stupid 260 limit!!!
Click to expand...
It wasn't so long ago that DOS had an 8-character limit for file names,
plus a 3-character extension.

Why not reorganize your files to a c:\MyOldFiles folder?

Bill
 
Bill Sharpe said:
It wasn't so long ago that DOS had an 8-character limit for file names,
plus a 3-character extension.

Why not reorganize your files to a c:\MyOldFiles folder?

Bill
Click to expand...


Didn't I say that I am trying to reorganizing my folder and files?

I do think when you organize folders, more levels of hierachy is a good
thing to do...
 
I assume you are trying to find a way to sort your data based on it's folder
or file name. There are other properties available to nonsystem files that
can do this in their properties, and this can be made just as visible as the
name.
For example, create a new folder, put two new text files in it. Rightclick
the folder, and then Properties, Summary tab, and "Comments" input box. Make
some description, and apply to each. Then open My Computer to that folders
parent, and rightclick the column title bar (name, size, modified, etc). Put
a check in Comments, OK, and sort by the comments with a double-click on the
title of that comments column. My point is that a much longer string of data
is available without being confronted by the 256 limit on filenames. (there
are other properties available to use, description, title, and host of
others.)
 
Mike said:
for some reason, I have some files previously located at:

c:\mydocs\mywork\myprograms\..........

which were long path names;

and now I want to move them to:

c:\document and settings\Peter\My Works\mywork_10_2007\myprograms\..........

And it didn't allow me to do it...

It says there is a 260 character limit...

But there are tens of thousands files that I want to reorganize... I don't
want to shorten their paths and names...

Anyway I can do it?

Stupid windows, stupid 260 limit!!!
Click to expand...

Sorry bud but I'm thinking "stupid user" if they want/need paths that deep
that they exceed character size limitations.
 
pjp said:
Sorry bud but I'm thinking "stupid user" if they want/need paths that
deep that they exceed character size limitations.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's got to be an awful lot of drilling to do to get to any place
specific.

They need to get outside the box at least for a minute or so and think about
what they're doing; it must be quite a mess.

f'ups set to Help & Support for this arm of the thread; makes NO sense
sending this stuff to all those places. Re-adjust at your pleasure.

Pop`
 
Mike said:
Didn't I say that I am trying to reorganizing my folder and files?

I do think when you organize folders, more levels of hierachy is a good
thing to do...
Click to expand...
Fine. Just use much shorter names for your folder hierarchy.
 
Hello,

I am new to powershell (within the past year, read rtfm, read powershell in
action)but I am sold on it.

I have a theory which I would like to try and test.

We have a convoluted file system, Extremely large san and plenty of these
260 character error pop up when I run -recurse against these locations ( I
actual only run powershell against the snap location server used for backups,
after the backups are done I might add), and I have many example to try this
on.

Theory

If $error can throw the $error[0].targetobject which may give me the path as
long as I can make sure that the proper error is present

I can either write all these separate $error[0].targetobject either out to
a file so that I could later do a foreach statemant to rehash the original
query.

Or If I got better at Function writing and scopes I could start my query
down low and Throw an error that might bring me up one level and work the
$error[0].targetobject path then proceed.
?

I wonder if this can work ?

Thanks and keep up the great work .
 
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