Windows 10 Pro - 260 Character File Path Limit - Not Working (Need To Go Deeper Than 260)

[jordangraham]

Windows 10 Pro - 260 Character File Path Limit - Not Working (Need To Go Deeper Than 260)

Hello, thanks for having me.  I have some questions if anyone out there knows I'd really appreciate your input.  Thanks in advance!

Questions:

1. I read in an online article "with Windows 10 anniversary edition and Windows Server 2016, it’s possible to get around the 260 character limit with some caveats. The new limit is 32,767 characters!" I was just wondering what these caveats are as I made the changes and I still can't seem to go deeper than 260 characters in my file folder system?

2. You said enabling “Long Paths” doesn’t magically remove the limit, it enables longer paths in certain situations. Just wondering if you could give me some examples of what it does what it doesn't do?

3. I was wondering if you could give me some advice on how to use PowerShell? The article mentioned "PowerShell seemed to be very happy with the extra characters, so you made a complex script containing the lines “md 12characters” and “cd 12characters” many, many times. PowerShell happily went mad creating subfolder after subfolder, although the speed of subfolder creation went from ludicrous speed to very very slow as it ran."

4. Is it unstable or dangerous to potentially lose files if I go longer than the 260 characters?  Is is safe for my files?  Will it stop working or delete these files that are longer than the 260 character path limit?

5. I noticed when I set "Enable Long Path" on my Windows 10 Pro version it allowed me to copy, move, and delete long path files but it did not allow me to actually go deeper once the 260 character path limit was reached and this is my main need to have this option so if I wanted to I could create folders 1,000 character path deep.  Is this possible or no as I can't seem to find anyone that has this information.

6. I understand that NTFS is the operating system for the operating system (Windows 10 Pro) and I have some external drives with just the factory NTFS formatting on it (No Windows Pro 10 or any other operating system).  So my question is how do I adjust this 260 path limit on this external drive with NTFS factory formatting on it and no operating system - In other words I'm still getting the file path to long error with the external drives even though they do not have windows on them.  Any suggestions?

Thank you

Jordan

[gabriel3]

Try Long Path Tool