Vista - Removing long paths

Heya,

I run into following problem - while trying to remove folder with long
name (stored on networks and needs to be accessed by FQDN), Remove-
Item reports following:
Remote-Item : The specified path, file name, or both are too long. The
fully qualified file name must be less than 260 characters, and the
directory name must be less than 248 characters.

Of course you can delete that folder from Explorer and even worse, you
can delete it from cmd

As a current workaround, I have to call Cmd /c RmDir /s /q
"$FolderPath"

I guess that limitation comes from API, but it's not very nice.

Any ideas? Or at least, could we get it in next Posh version (as far
as I remember, NTFS limitation is 32,000 characters)

Martin

Does it work if you creat a new psdrive at some point down the FQDN and do
your remove-item referenced from there?

"Martin Zugec" wrote:

Hi Rob,

yes, it works, but that's just workaround. Problem is that I run into
this in my framework and I don't know how it's going to be used, so I
need solution that will work everywhere\everytime

I am annoyed because these folders can be deleted from explorer\cmd,
but not from powershell

Martin

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000729.html

has a discussion of this limitation of the Windows API.

- Larry

Martin Zugec wrote:

Hi Larry,

yes, I know that link, however why is PowerShell using this older API
and limiting itself?

Martin

Martin,

Have you just simply tried shortening the paths?

Comments by Microsoft at
https://connect.microsoft.com/PowerS...dbackID=276235
are interesting.

Posted by Microsoft on 1/13/2009 at 8:16 AM
None of PowerShell inherently has the path length limitations -- it all comes
from the .NET Framework. There is a working group around removing this
restriction, and we met with the CLR feature crew to discuss it as it relates to
PowerShell before the holiday break. They will be putting a wrapper class on
CodePlex in the near future for SOME support, with full support coming to the
real FileInfo and DirectoryInfo types in the next verison of the CLR.

- Larry


Martin Zugec wrote:

@Lancelot: that would be easiest solution, however is not possible :
( My solution is exporting parts of SCCM - configuration is exported
to XML files and sources are exported also. I run into this limitation
when handling with applications like XenApp or some Adobe products,
that likes to store some files in locations like "Bin\Program Files
\Adobe\Acrobat Reader..."

@Larry: Interesting - I hope it will be available as soon as possible,
because this is pretty dangerous situation (especially when cmd and
explorer supports longer paths)