Windows 7 File Path Length Limit Error - What can I do?

Question

In my personal documents I created files, folders and sub folders to organize my work how I would need it to find my documents. Some file names contain empty spaces or given names from applications. Till yet "Windows 7 64 Bit Home" did not complained about any path lengths while I just worked with these files. Now it appeared, that I needed to make a backup. Windows 7 constantly refuses me to copy my work on an external disk, saying that 40000 to long file- and folder names were found. But Windows shows me not which files and folders exactly are involved. To copy a backup Windows asks to "Skip" these files or cancel the entire copy process. Is this normal or do I have a virus? Also deletion of files and folders are refused by windows saying the file name is to long:( I asked in my local computer shop and they said me that "Windows 7 Home" works like a demo software only I shall pay 300 bucks for the "Ultimate Edition" to remove the limit. What do you say? Is there another way to fix this?

Answer 1

I also faced similar problem in Windows 7 and I was able to find out the exact folders and files which have exceeded the 255 character limit, by using "path scanner". Then I made the changes in those folders so that they come within this character limit.

You can check out the software from this link and see if it helps you -

http://www.parhelia-tools.com/products/pathscanner/PathScanner.aspx

Answer 2

I wrote a small application to take care this problem and reduce unnecessery text from the PATH environment variable in windows 7. It simply removes duplicates and removes paths that are no longer valid.

you can try it out here: https://github.com/AsafShochet/Environment-Path-Variable-Minimizer

Answer 3

If it is just about deleting or moving the files, you can circumvent the problem by mapping the top folder (depending on path lengths maybe some sub folders) of what you want to move to a drive ( https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/map-a.network-drive-in-windows-29ce55d1-34e3-a7e2-4801-131475f9557d ) and then copying from that drive. If the pathes become too long this can be a very tedious work though where you need to map several folders.