Does built in Windows 7 backup handle paths > 256 chars?

Question

Does built in Windows 7 backup handle paths > 256 chars ?

I'm doing NTFS to NTFS backup using Cobain, from external drive to external drive, and it's simply NOT backing up those files that have path > 256.

Answer 1

it depends:

In the Windows API (with some exceptions discussed in the following paragraphs), the maximum length for a path is MAX_PATH, which is defined as 260 characters.

one of the exceptions is that by using the unicode equivalents of the API you get 32k path length:

The Windows API has many functions that also have Unicode versions to permit an extended-length path for a maximum total path length of 32,767 characters.

so, ntfs itself is quite capable of storing filenames longer than 260 chars but the programmer must use the right API. example given:

To specify an extended-length path, use the "\?\" prefix. For example, "\?\D:\very long path".

read more about the topic at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365247(v=vs.85).aspx.

that said: i think that the builtin backup software of microsoft handles long filenames quite well. i would be a bit sceptic about the one option where it uses zip files as the storage container, but the one using vdk as the storage container should be just fine with the long file names.