As a full time desktop Linux user since 1999 (the actual year of the Linux desktop, I swear) I wish all you Windows folks the best of luck on the next clean install 👍

…and Happy 30th Birthday “New Technology” File System!

  • motorwerks@sopuli.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    8
    ·
    1 year ago

    You like diving 12 folders deep to find the file you’re after? I feel like there’s better, more efficient ways to be organized using metadata, but maybe I’m wrong.

    • d3Xt3r@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      1 year ago

      Not OP, but I occasionally come across this issue at work, where some user complains they they are unable to access a file/folder because of the limit. You often find this in medium-large organisations with many regions and divisions and departments etc. Usually they would create a shortcut to their team/project’s folder space so they don’t have to manually navigate to it each time. The folder structure might be quite nested, but it’s organized logically, it makes sense. Better than dumping millions of files into a single folder.

      Anyways, this isn’t actually an NTFS limit, but a Windows API limit. There’s even a registry value[1] you can change to lift the limit, but the problem is that it can crash legacy programs or lead to unexpected behavior, so large organisations (like ours) shy away from the change.

      1. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/maximum-file-path-limitation?tabs=registry
    • Riskable@programming.devOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      C:\Users\axexandriaanastasiachristianson\Downloads\some_git_repo\src\...

      You run into the file parth limit all the fucking time if you’re a developer at an organization that enforces fullname usernames.

        • bighi@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          11
          ·
          1 year ago

          People have been talking about the real problem from the beginning of the thread: small character limit on file paths.

            • bighi@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              1 year ago

              Only if you go into settings, disable the safety measures and change it. And some apps might break.

              No, the default file path limit is 256 characters. And I don’t mean file name. Full file path.

              • Aux@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                1 year ago

                No, you don’t need to change any settings, that’s the thing! Windows, unlike other OSes, has several APIs. Old apps (and dumb apps) are using old API and are limited to 260 characters. New apps are using new API and are limited by 32k characters. This “new API” is available since NT4, btw.

                • bighi@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  I remember I had to change a setting when using Windows. And it even showed me an “Are you sure?” dialog. It wasn’t that long ago. Is that not a thing anymore?

                  • Aux@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    1 year ago

                    Once again, that only affects old or dumb apps. Any half decent app supports 32k paths since late 1990-s.

          • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            I would be pissed if they made me use such a ridiculously long login name at work. Mine is twelve characters and that’s already a pain in the ass (but it’s a huge company and I have a really common name, so I guess all the shorter variations were already taken).

            Edit: Also, I checked it’s really very simple to enable 32kb paths in recent versions of Windows.

            • orangeboats@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              1 year ago

              If your name consists of non-ASCII characters, like Thai words or Arabic or Chinese, it’s pretty easy to rack up >15 bytes in your username alone.