Re: XP says "Kaye's Documents" but Win98 says "My Documents"

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From: Parish (me_at_privacy.net)
Date: 02/17/04 

Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 20:41:20 +0000

Sharon F wrote:

> On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 14:44:56 -0500, Jack wrote:
>
>> Yes, of course -- but since when can't Win 98 read more than 12 characters
>> in a folder name? I mean it's strange that such is the case in this
>> particular situation.
>
> Long file names can be a strange beast. It wouldn't even crop up if
> networking wasn't involved. When setting up my home LAN, I got the
> impression that the limitation was actually on the WinXP side of things
> (vague memory of computer name being limited to 8 characters anyhow). Was
> suprised to read that the notification you saw referred to Win98.
>

No, it's 98 and, believe it or not, NT that is limited to 12 chars.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q237791

The above doesn't mention NT but the bottom of this page does:
http://www.winxpsolution.com/UnderstandSharedfolderXPPro.aspx

Just a thought; 8.3 filenames are 11 chars + the dot - maybe that's
something to do with it?

I do hope that in Longhorn MS will finally drop support for 8.3
filenames and all the hassles it brings.

You can stop XP (and W2K) creating the 8.3 aliases by setting
NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation to 1 in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem but even
some modern programs, such as Norton AV (at least NAV 2002) won't
install properly if you do.

It can also be dangerous on the command line, especially in batch files:

   C:\usr\radan\msg>dir *1.std
    Volume in drive C has no label.
    Volume Serial Number is A00E-8176

    Directory of C:\usr\radan\msg

   26/07/2002 11:34 3,311 ageneral0.STD
   26/07/2002 11:29 30,777 bgeneral0.STD
   26/07/2002 11:29 8,733 dgeneral0.STD
   26/07/2002 11:29 5,649 edithelp0.STD
   26/07/2002 11:30 10,667 igeneral0.STD
   26/07/2002 11:30 83,116 pgeneral0.STD
   24/10/2001 11:08 2,851 plisthelp0.STD
   26/07/2002 11:30 14,731 p_mdrhelp0.STD
   26/07/2002 11:30 4,885 p_ptnhelp0.STD
   26/07/2002 11:30 3,117 p_winhelp0.STD
                 10 File(s) 167,837 bytes
                  0 Dir(s) 49,012,477,952 bytes free

So where are any files there that match '*1.std'???

If we now try:

   C:\usr\radan\msg>dir /x *1.std
    Volume in drive C has no label.
    Volume Serial Number is A00E-8176

    Directory of C:\usr\radan\msg

   26/07/2002 11:34 3,311 AGENER~1.STD ageneral0.STD
   26/07/2002 11:29 30,777 BGENER~1.STD bgeneral0.STD
   26/07/2002 11:29 8,733 DGENER~1.STD dgeneral0.STD
   26/07/2002 11:29 5,649 EDITHE~1.STD edithelp0.STD
   26/07/2002 11:30 10,667 IGENER~1.STD igeneral0.STD
   26/07/2002 11:30 83,116 PGENER~1.STD pgeneral0.STD
   24/10/2001 11:08 2,851 PLISTH~1.STD plisthelp0.STD
   26/07/2002 11:30 14,731 P_MDRH~1.STD p_mdrhelp0.STD
   26/07/2002 11:30 4,885 P_PTNH~1.STD p_ptnhelp0.STD
   26/07/2002 11:30 3,117 P_WINH~1.STD p_winhelp0.STD
                 10 File(s) 167,837 bytes
                  0 Dir(s) 49,012,477,952 bytes free

Oh, look, the short names all end in '~1'. Good job that was 'DIR' not
'DEL'!!! And yes, I have been bitten by that one (using DEL), that's how
I know about it, but it took bloody ages to find out why!

Regards,

Parish

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