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Windows 10 has an option to allow for longer file paths (background). Is it risky to enable this option?

I ask because I've heard mixed comments about how there can be bugs related to long file names.

From a recent (2016-07-30) MSDN blog post:

  • A comment:

    I don’t really understand why this is not enabled by default in Windows 10 (1607), and also why this has to involve extra configuration set in the application (through the application manifest). Seems to be rather complicated to me.
    Is there any justified cost of enabling it without these extra steps (other than setting the .NET Framework to 4.6.2)?

  • The response:

    Because other pieces were not ready (notably CMD) it was felt that off by default was best for the initial release.

Another question on SuperUser (2016-08-17) seems to suggest that there're known issues.

Question: Does enabling long file paths increase the risk of file loss or corruption on Windows 10?

Nat
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1 Answers1

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It's possible now to enable "Long Paths" in Windows 10, Version 1607, and Later

See this article: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/maximum-file-path-limitation?tabs=registry

The real follow-up question is "should you?" If you want to be the most cross platform you can be... keeping the limit in place may be desirable. This is a spectrum one should consider... .NET Standard (2.0) projects started giving me trouble with some of my deeper branched code experiments with large folder names I found myself in trouble (missing files during compilation...) It was safer to make sure my feature branching experiments kept the folder names smaller or favor branching as siblings... Ensuring certain files in the build process will actually be generated and copied... given your naming preferences ymmv. If you stay all windows all the time... you probably have much less to worry about... This is the spectrum I refer to.

Hunter-Orionnoir
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