Any solution to the 260 long path problem?

[eejit]

Hi there,

I guess that we've all run into the problem where you can't access files due to the path lenght being over 260 characters. (end users save these using mapped drives, but when you look at them from the server the maximum path is exceeded)

 

Has anyone got a solution to this yet? Ideally I'd like to alter the max path lenght of all the clients to 200 characters, but Microsoft have told me in the past that this is impossible.

 

What have you guys done to get around this problem?

 

Thanks

[Hedghog]

What I have done in the past is break the job down by putting strategically place shares in place and then mapping a drive to the share. This cuts the apparent path length down to the client connecting to it. Then delete the files. I have had to do this 2 or 3 times with some of my little darlings as they set out to create the longest path they can. Some have managed over 30 levels:bowl:

[3s-gtech]

Our path lengths are not particularly long, but when I find one (usually by running a Treesize scan) where a student has set out to cause a nuisance, I simply change the folder names to a single character, going into each folder in the tree until Windows will alow me to delete/move the file. Only a few occasions where this hasn't worked.

[eejit]

Thanks for the replies guys, we do things like that too - there is a program called FileBoss that is very good for rooting out these long paths and can even shorten the folders if you tell it to.

 

I was just hoping that in the couple of years since I've researched this problem someone may have had some breakthrough in stopping the kids doing this in the first place.

 

Thanks again.

[smadison]

If all else fails use go to a command promt and delete everything using RD or RMdir

 

The following command will remove directory C:\blah and all subdirectories and files contained therein. No prompt will be displayed.

 

[eejit]

Thanks - that's really improved the performance of our backups too! They now finish in a fraction of the time.