Explorer and File Manager Cannot Enumerate Path Longer Than 260 Characters

This article was previously published under Q101635

Any attempts to enumerate paths longer than 260 characters fails with File Manager, Explorer, and traversing the directory tree in a MS-DOS window in Windows NT. Other operations, such as setting Windows NT or Macintosh permissions in Windows NT, fail as well. This behavior can cause problems when you run Windows NT Services for Macintosh (SFM) because Macintosh paths often exceed 260 characters.

To work around this limitation, view the directory or set the required permissions on a Macintosh.

NOTE: Because of this limitation, you cannot backup these directories using Microsoft Windows NT Backup.