long filenames in windows

2015-05-31

azim58 - long filenames in windows
handling long filenames
handling large filenames
dealing with long filenames
dealing with large filenames

I was trying to look for some solutions to problems with long
filenames/filepaths in windows.

One solution to long filenames is to rename the files and put a file with a key for the new names and old names. Here are a few steps.

First identify the files with the long filenames
-In the windows command prompt, navigate to the directory where you want to list the filenames and where you want to output a text file of the filenames. In windows type the command to list all files in subdirectories and output this to a text file
--dir /s /b /o:gn>filenames.txt
--note that you probably just want to navigate to the directory where you think the long filenames are. If you list all of the filenames from the parent directory, you may end up with a huge text file that is difficult to manage with any software.
once you have identified the files with the long filepaths and names, you could just move them to a much higher directory (like "C:\Users\kurtw_000\Documents\kurt\storage\long"). You could put a note in the original location that the files have been moved to the new location. Alternatively, you could try to rename the files to the hidden windows short names and store a file with a key to go from the new short name to the old original name (I'll have to write instructions on how to do that if I ever run into the situation in which I want to go through that process)

Here are a few potential solutions, but none of them look extremely good.

make a virtual drive with the subst command
http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows/87563-long-file-paths-solutions.html

use robocopy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocopy

Actually, none of these solutions look very convenient. I did get "easy
robocopy" to work, but then the files with the long filenames can't be
reached.

Maybe I should put files in a "dated records" folder in a high up
directory so that the filenames will not be too long. Then, for
organizing, indexing, and quickly searching information I can have text
information and links on my wiki. For some more significant files, I
could also put those in some heirarchical location on the hard drive as
well. I think this might be a fairly good solution to my problems for
now. Another advantage of this method is that less thought would be
required to place the files in a certain place in a heirarchy. Files
could just be quickly created, and still quickly found later.

see also how to identify long filepath names