Max file path length in Windows

[stc]

Often when I drag-drop a folder that has long file names, Windows will refuse to move files with long path+filename lengths. This leaves a folder at the source location that contains just the files with longer names. When I open the source and dest folders in BC, I am able to move those same files that failed to move/copy under standard Windows.

Is this a good thing? I'm not sure how this will affect the integrity of the Windows file system.

[Zoë]

BC is working as intended and your file system integrity is fine. Explorer, for legacy reasons, can be limited to paths that are shorter than 260 characters, but Windows and the file system can handle paths up to ~32,000 characters, and if other applications have been written to account for it they'll work fine too. Windows 10 even added some additional support to make it easier for developers to update their applications to handle the long paths. BC itself has worked with them since v2.1, which was released in 2003.

Depending on what you're doing though, it is something you'll want to be careful about, since whether it will work for you will depend on what other applications you're using to access those files.

[stc]

Thanks, Zoe. I didn't know the official path limit, so the aborted copy/move ops were a mystery. You'd think that would have been addressed in Explorer.
I didn't think BC had gone rogue and was going to corrupt the FS, but your point about compatibility with legacy apps is well taken. :-) Still, you'd think that would be a warning issued by Explorer, and not a hard error/abort.