I have a Windows file server (currently on Server 2003) that is accessed by Windows XP and 7 clients, as well as a few OS X and Linux clients using SAMBA.
I am perplexed by the fact that all clients appear to be able to write files to the server that end up well beyond the 260 character limit the Windows API imposes on pathnames. I would think that a write or copy that resulted in a file being buried 300+ characters deep would fail, but it does not, and the result is I have thousands of files that can't be opened, deleted, backed up etc.
Is there anything that can be done to prevent this? Again, I don't understand why the operating system 'allows' this in the first place?
I wanted to migrate the data on this Server 2003 box to newer hardware recently using the File Services Migration Toolkit, and this is when I discovered I had over 40,000 files that had names exceeding the limit.
What, if anything can I do to move this data? Can Robocopy handle it?
thanks for any insights...
Dana