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Conference noted::windows95

Title:	Microsoft Windows 95 ("Chicago")
Notice:	Please read topics 1 to 22 before writing anything
Moderator:	EEMELI::BACKSTROM

Created:	Sun Nov 13 1994
Last Modified:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	2958
Total number of notes:	19968

2868.0. "Can't copy large number of files PC - VMS" by TNPUBS::MARK () Thu Mar 20 1997 13:31

    I have a user who is trying to copy (using Windows Explorer) drag/drop
    to copy a large number of files to his VMS account.
    
    When he selects the files, and does a copy, it starts copying the files
    to his VMS account, into a subdirectory called "TRANSFER", and after about
    20 files copied successfully, he gets and error message that reads:
    			
    
    		The folder "TRANSFER" does not exist, do you want to create
    		it? 
    
    		If you specify "YES", it says it "already exists".
    
    I then tried to copy these files from the dos prompt, and after a few
    files I got an error that read:
    
    		"Path not found"
    
    At first I thought that the length of the files (some very long) was
    the problem, but the user says he did the same procedure last week (and
    even showed me all the files he copied over, which were most of the
    same ones he is trying now, only into a different subdirectory.
    
    Has anyone seen or know what the problem is? There is sufficient space
    on the VMS side (I checked diskquota and free space on the drive)
    
    mark

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
2868.1	Filename length?	OSEC::pervy.mco.dec.com::gilbertb	cyberpaddler	`Thu Mar 20 1997 16:19`	12
	I've suffered similar symptoms. I tracked it down to a problem with file name length. I'm not sure what the limits are - it may be the length of the total file path - anyway Pathworks misinterprets the copy command completely. The error message is a spurious symptom only. Oh, and it also UPPERCASES all filenames if you copy them back again. Be patient, long filenames on PCs are still a relatively new phenomenon, only been going 5 years or so. Brian
2868.2	The facts...	OSEC::pervy.mco.dec.com::gilbertb	cyberpaddler	`Thu Mar 20 1997 17:39`	28
	In the interests of science I've just done some tests. The limit seems to be around 70 characters, depending on the number of '.''s in the name. These are the test long filenames I could create without an error message. X23456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890.1234567890123 X23456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123.1234567890 X.123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012 X2345678901234567890123456789012345678.90123456789012345678901234567890123456 X123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456.1.1 I also checked and found that the largest file name limit doesn't vary with path length. BTW: I checked Win 95: Explorer stops at X2345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890 12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890 12345678901234567890.123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567 Brian
2868.3		BULEAN::BANKS	Saturn Sap	`Thu Mar 20 1997 18:18`	2
	Huh. I always thought VMS filenames were limited to 39 characters dot 39 more characters.
2868.4		BULEAN::BANKS	Saturn Sap	`Thu Mar 20 1997 18:21`	7
	It's been a heck of a long time since I've worked on pathworks, and I know there's been one major rewrite since I've been there, but: Putting extra "."s in the filename (beyond the typical one separating name from extension) would probably be expanded to four characters in the VMS file name (as in "__2E" or something like that). That would obviously shorten the maximum length of the filename that VMS could handle.
2868.5		VMSNET::S_VORE	Smile - Mickey's Watching!	`Mon Mar 24 1997 11:16`	3
	there's an article in the TIMA/STARS database describing how various verions of the PATHWORKS server handle long file names.