Filenames limited to eight-dot-three

[Steverooo]

Win98, second release. Filenames are limited to eleven characters in length, but directory names are not...

This causes problems. For instance, when installing The LeGame software from the Server Drive, several files begin with "unorthodox" and end with ".pdf". Windoze asks if I want to overwrite the file, even though they have different names!

What's wrong, and how do I fix it? I can find no "support long filenames" switch, anywhere!

HELP! (Please?)

 

[Cergorach]

Upgrade to a somewhat more proper OS, win2k or XP are decent...

 

[Thanee]

Win'98 definitely can do long filenames... no idea what's wrong there, tho.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Plane Sailing]

Best suggestions I can find are here

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/179370/EN-US/

(tells you how to avoid a situation where 8.3 filenames are overwriting one another)

This URL is for troubleshooting Win98 file system problems and may be helpful

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/165503/EN-US/

If you are feeling brave you could look in the registry - following quote is from MS, relating to Win98 so it is probably not applicable - but it is worth seeing if the following registry key is set.

You can disable long file names on FAT volumes if you use MS-DOS–based disk tools regularly on the computer. These tools might either eliminate the long file names created by Windows XP Professional or delete the files that have long file names.

To prevent a FAT file system from creating long file names, set the value of the Win31FileSystem registry entry (in the subkey HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem) to 1. This value prevents Windows XP Professional from creating new long file names on all FAT volumes. However, existing long file names remain intact but are not displayed in My Computer, Windows Explorer, or at the command prompt.

Regards,

 

[Steverooo]

Thanks, PS (although those articles didn't solve my problem). I don't have the NoTail tag set, and the second article seemed to apply only to Win95, not 98. I did have to look in the registry, and Win31FileSystem is set to 0 (off), so that isn't the problem, either...

Could the problem be in the Unzip file utility, instead of Windoze? Hmmm! I hadn't thought of that, before... (Ponders) Maybe I need a new file unzipper utility? Maybe IT can't create long file names? Could that be the problem? UnZip 5.0p1, 12 Jan. 1993... That's probably pre-98!

I think I just found my problem, eh!?

(Well now, Jonesy! There's something you don't see everyday!)

So I guess now what I need is a new freeware unzipper that's post-98!

 

[talmar]

Winzip

PKZip

WinRAR

google them to get them

 

[XCorvis]

I can't recall much about Win98, but might you be using a Fat16 formatted filesystem? The one you want to be using is Fat32... Unfortunately, I can't even recall how to check that.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Could the problem be in the Unzip file utility, instead of Windoze?
...
Could that be the problem? UnZip 5.0p1, 12 Jan. 1993... That's probably pre-98!

Who did you get that unzip utility from, Noah?



(and I don't mean the eric version!)

 

[reanjr]

So I guess now what I need is a new freeware unzipper that's post-98!

If you are not afraid of the command line, I'd suggest some set of GNU unzip utilities. They are the only ones I know of that are free (after 30 days) and any good (fast)

 

[Steverooo]

Who did you get that unzip utility from, Noah?



(and I don't mean the eric version!)

No, PSL (the now-defunct Public Software Library), not Eric Noah!