Dealing with long filenames

Mike Danger

I have to copy some files off of a flash drive to a laptop for a customer. The problem is that half the directories/files have excessively long names, which makes copying them over an exercise in frustration. So far, I've tried an app one of my coworkers recommended that was supposed to automatically adjust names as it copied files (it didn't) and a free tool from Google that was supposed to fix names (it didn't).

Can anyone advise me on the best way to deal with this? Google leads me to lots of file renamers but nothing really specific/universally agreed on.

Dehumanized

I'd look into writing some Robocopy commands, particularly leveraging the /e flag:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc733145(v=ws.10).aspx
http://www.mydigitallife.info/robocopy-syntax-command-line-switches-and-examples/

uean

Robocopy.

That, or use the command prompt and shorten them to 8bit names using ~. There's a name for what this is, but it boils down to this:

"mv c:\documents and settings\somestupiduser\areallylongdirectorynamehere\*.* c:\newdir\*.*"

Assuming that the above filename was actually 255+ chars and you encountered problems moving it you can do this instead:

"mv c:\docume~1\somest~1\areall~1\*.* c:\newdir\*.*"

Essentially shorten it down to 8 characters and ommit the missed chars by placing ~ in its place.

Have soooo much fun with that by the way. *ergh*

You can also burn a Knoppix CD or other Live Linux CD and move your files around that way.

Abracadaniel

If it's strictly renaming, I've had a ton of luck with Ken Rename, freeware little deal.

bowen

So... pardon my dumbness here... but why not just do a straight copy of the files right on the drive? Right click, copy, go to c:\folderhere\ and paste?

Unknown

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bowen

Yeah I wasn't sure if it was the 255 character limit or what. OP didn't really say much in that regards.