4 ms·

I always thought this limitation came from NTFS, or at least a previous version of. Maybe this might be resolved in the gradual move to ReFS which I am under t

I always thought this limitation came from NTFS, or at least a previous version of. Maybe this might be resolved in the gradual move to ReFS which I am under the impression is the long term future of the windows world.

unsignedint 13y ago
I think that's file name limitation. I think NTFS allows 32767 for full path...
- cryptos 13y ago
  Yes, NTFS would support much longer paths than 260 characters.
masklinn 13y ago
> I always thought this limitation came from NTFS, or at least a previous version of. NTFS allows paths up to 32767 UTF-16 code units (after expansions) with each path component (between `\` separators) up to 255 code units, and this is available through UNC paths. MAX_PATH is a Windows API limitation, and thus a limitation implicitly inherited by many windows-based software which use MAX_PATH as storage limits and buffer sizes. Changing filesystem will not fix WinAPI issues.
- ygra 13y ago
  I wonder whether there was a right answer at the time MAX_PATH was conceived. It certainly is nice to have a hard upper bound for buffer sizes path API functions will fill and 32k would be a bit large to use by default.
earlz 13y ago
NTFS is actually a pretty glorious filesystem. It even includes support for soft and hard links.. but for some reason Windows doesn't use them and instead prefers it's weird shortcut file abstraction which never works outside of Explorer
- ygra 13y ago
  You haven't looked at the default filesystem layout of Windows Vista and later, did you? Hardlinks are extensively used in WinSxS to link the DLLs and executables to places where they used to live. Symlinks are used for many of the legacy directory names that some applications have hardcoded, e.g. C:\Documents and Settings links to C:\Users.
  - Dylan16807 13y ago
    But the user has no access to file symlinks without escalating to admin every time they want to make one.
    - tanzam75 13y ago
      > But the user has no access to file symlinks without escalating to admin every time they want to make one. By default. This is a security restriction, like UAC. And so you can turn it off, just like you can turn off UAC.
      - Dylan16807 13y ago
        And requiring that makes it useless for most purposes.
- marshray 13y ago
  The 'shortcut' thing came from Win95, which ran on the VFAT filesystem.
rogerbinns 13y ago
It comes from the operating system pathname parsing code. That is why you can do things with a deeper current working directory. There is an alternate parser, but the name has to start with \\? and then it takes up to 32kb of text.

unsignedint 13y ago

I think that's file name limitation. I think NTFS allows 32767 for full path...

cryptos 13y ago
Yes, NTFS would support much longer paths than 260 characters.

masklinn 13y ago

> I always thought this limitation came from NTFS, or at least a previous version of. NTFS allows paths up to 32767 UTF-16 code units (after expansions) with each path component (between `\` separators) up to 255 code units, and this is available through UNC paths. MAX_PATH is a Windows API limitation, and thus a limitation implicitly inherited by many windows-based software which use MAX_PATH as storage limits and buffer sizes. Changing filesystem will not fix WinAPI issues.

ygra 13y ago
I wonder whether there was a right answer at the time MAX_PATH was conceived. It certainly is nice to have a hard upper bound for buffer sizes path API functions will fill and 32k would be a bit large to use by default.

earlz 13y ago

NTFS is actually a pretty glorious filesystem. It even includes support for soft and hard links.. but for some reason Windows doesn't use them and instead prefers it's weird shortcut file abstraction which never works outside of Explorer

ygra 13y ago
You haven't looked at the default filesystem layout of Windows Vista and later, did you? Hardlinks are extensively used in WinSxS to link the DLLs and executables to places where they used to live. Symlinks are used for many of the legacy directory names that some applications have hardcoded, e.g. C:\Documents and Settings links to C:\Users.
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  But the user has no access to file symlinks without escalating to admin every time they want to make one.
  - tanzam75 13y ago
    > But the user has no access to file symlinks without escalating to admin every time they want to make one. By default. This is a security restriction, like UAC. And so you can turn it off, just like you can turn off UAC.
    - Dylan16807 13y ago
      And requiring that makes it useless for most purposes.
marshray 13y ago
The 'shortcut' thing came from Win95, which ran on the VFAT filesystem.

rogerbinns 13y ago

It comes from the operating system pathname parsing code. That is why you can do things with a deeper current working directory. There is an alternate parser, but the name has to start with \\? and then it takes up to 32kb of text.