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Background

I am working on analyzing a large base of source code provided to me as a 5GB .zip file. I need to maintain the exact file structure when extracting, however, when I attempt to extract I get an error message saying:

The file name(s) would be too long for the destination folder.

I understand that this is due to Windows' 260 character limit on file paths, but there is a hotfix for this published by Microsoft.

I downloaded the hotfix, ran as an administrator, but then got another error:

This update is not applicable to your computer.

Well, according to the hotfix literature, it should be exactly applicable to my computer.

My System

  • Windows 7 Ultimate
  • SP1
  • x64

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

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11
  • You probably don't need the Hotfix (from 2010), as you probably already have an updated version of the files it fixes. If you look at the hotfix article, it tells you which file(s) will be updated to which version by the hotfix. It says it will update the 64-bit "wbengine.exe" to 6.1.7600.20690. My Win 7 64-bit SP1 machine is fully up to date; I never applied that hotfix, and yet my wbengine.exe is at version 6.1.7601.17514, so the hotfix wouldn't apply to me either, as I have an even newer version of the file already.
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    Jan 22, 2014 at 16:21
  • Actually, once you click the blue hotfix button, it brings you to a screen that allows you to select x64 which I have done. Thanks though.
    – Matt Cashatt
    Jan 22, 2014 at 16:22
  • Sounds like the file path is simply to long. Try make the file path shorter to verify thats the problem.
    – Ramhound
    Jan 22, 2014 at 16:23
  • @techie007--Ok, thanks, but even if that is the case, the original problem still persists. Vista allowed for long file paths, so I can't imagine that Win 7 can't do it.
    – Matt Cashatt
    Jan 22, 2014 at 16:23
  • The path length includes the folder you are extracting it too as well. So perhaps try extracting it to a folder with a short name, something like "C:\a"?
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    Jan 22, 2014 at 16:24

1 Answer 1

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A couple of suggestions:

  1. Have you checked the version of wbengine.exe installed on your system? Maybe you already have a newer one, and thus the hotfix won't install.
  2. As a temporary work around, you could use Delimon Win32 Explorer, which uses a different library that gets around the 260-character issue (it supports up to 32K characters) and seems to work in Win7. Make sure you check the "Known Issues" section.

Addition: When you're using Delimon Explorer, you can assign a different program to become the default program for an extension. For this question, right click any zip file, click on Properties and next to the Opens with section, you'll see a Change... button. Click it and select the program you would like to use to open/view the file.

Hope that helps somewhat.

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  • Thanks for your suggestion. I tried it but sadly, I can't extract from a .zip file within the Delimon program. Am I missing something obvious?
    – Matt Cashatt
    Jan 22, 2014 at 16:59
  • Are you using Explorer's built-in Zip extractor? Try 7-zip, or if you are comfortable with the command line, you could try Info-ZIP's unzip.exe. Not sure if 7-zip's works from the GUI, as I've found mention of having to use list files.
    – JSanchez
    Jan 22, 2014 at 17:02
  • the good thing is it's an official workaround so no problem.
    – KNU
    Jun 27, 2014 at 10:24

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