File History and Long Path Names

spilly · 12 Mar 2019

Shawn - or anybody that knows...

Can you tell me if FH manifest is Long Path aware?
(Sorry - All the FH .manifest files I can find are binary, not text)

I am trying to help a dyslexic user with memory problems (memory as in "brain", not "bytes")
Her system is Win 10 Home, and I'm sure the default max path applies.

She has a huge folder tree which breaks the ~256 byte limit many times.
Her file and folder names are long, with space separated words - all the things you should avoid.

As a result, Win 10 File History falls over with a long path length error

I'm recommending her to use regular monthly Reflect Image backups
with the FH service to backup her user data as per the FH defaults

I'm hoping that FH is in fact Long Path aware
- after all it adds 29 bytes of timestamp to every filename from what I can see

I plan to rebuild her Windows, and to enable Long paths after the rebuild
as well as trying to get her to use shorter names
- Do you have Any words of advice on this

Spilly
(orig posted to Gen Support, but then I realised the tutorial was in this Category)

dalchina · 13 Mar 2019

Hi, there are no real answers here from MS, except it does seem to be a problem:
Windows 10 File History, Long File Names, and Indexing - Microsoft Community

File history doesnt let you backup long path file names - Microsoft Community

windows 10 - File History is set up but it doesnt backup (folder is empty) - Super User

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/51704-enable-disable-win32-long-paths-windows-10-a.html

I think it would require experimentation by an experienced user to determine this. I don't use File History myself. The last two links give details of how to enable long paths, but whether that is respected by any given feature may depend on its particular coding.