Deleting Folders With ‘Long Filenames’ (Source Path Too Long)

Posted on 05/02/2018 by PeteLong

KB ID 0001396

Problem

Source Path Too Long
The source file name(s) are larger than is supported by the file system. Try moving to a location which has a shorter path name, or try renaming to shorter name(s) before attempting this operation.

“Have you come across a problem deleting folders with long filenames?” I got asked this question twice in the first week at a new job. In a former role my colleague did a lot of work in schools and was forever coming across this problem when doing file migrations.

As it transpired this was a problem at, yes you’ve guessed it a school that was a client. The little darlings had got hold of a script that recursively created nested folders, and as obviously this is hilarious it had happened multiple times.

I didn’t have a solution of the top of my head, but I thought I’d try and recreate the problem, and see if there was a simple solution.

Solution

The most difficult part was replicating the script. Windows is pretty good at protecting itself. But thanks to the good folk at Experts-Exchange’s assistance, I was good to go, attempting to move or delete the file generated the error you see above.

Method One: Use Robocopy

Robocopy has been built into windows for a while, you can use it with the /MIR flag to remove all your subfolders.

[box]

MD C:\DELETE-ME
robocopy C:\DELETE-ME C:\{path}\{The Top Level Folder To Delete} /s /mir

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Then you can simply delete the two remaining empty folders

[box]

rd C:\DELETE-ME
rd C:\{path}\{The Top Level Folder To Delete}

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Method Two: Use a GUI Tool

I’m always suspicious of third party tools, and if you Google this problem two pieces of software will jump out, one’s brilliant does not have any spamware or malware in it, the other one’s, well not free and annoying.

The Good

DeleteLongPath by BackupChain simple and does exactly what you expect. Take some time to look a their backup software as well!

The Bad

Message boards are spammed with people saying how great this piece of software is, probably by the clowns who make it! Long Path Tool, they just want your money don’t bother.

Update: I’ve had about 15 to 20 chancers trying to post favourable comments for this piece of junk, don’t bother i wont approve them!

Robocopy – File Server Migration

Posted on 25/08/2016 by PeteLong

KB ID 0001233

Problem

I’ve done a lot of migrations, and moving a client’s files and shared data, usually makes them cringe.

I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve heard ‘We can’t have any downtime’, which is fine, until you tell them how much its going to cost to do this on a Saturday!

As I posted recently, Microsoft have made this a lot easier with the file serve migration tools, which will do the whole thing for you, and migrate profiles, and shares etc.

Windows Server – Migrating Files / Folders / Shares / User Profiles

Thats great, but I find sometimes it’s a little ‘sluggish’ when copying data, and sometimes it’s better to just go ‘old school’ and use Robocopy.

Solution

Why Robocopy? Well the advantage to Robocopy, is you can use it to only copy new files or files that have changed. So in a two step procedure, you can do an initial file copy during working hours, then copy the differences out of hours, and repoint people to the new shares.

Tip: Unless you know the network well, always assume there’s some shares you don’t know about, run the fsmgmt.msc tool and expand ‘shares’.

Robocopy Step 1

Just in case things go wrong, I’m going to generate a log of whats going on, so I can see any errors or files skipped when I’ve finished. On the root of the destination servers C: drive create a folder called ROBOCOPY-Logs, and within this folder create another folder called Last-Copy, (you will see why later).

Replace the values in red below, to suit you environment;

[box]robocopy \\OLDSERVER\d$\FOLDER D:\FOLDER /e /zb /copy:DATSOU /r:3 /w:3 /log:c:\ROBOCOPY-Logs\FOLDER.log /V /NP
[/box]

Where OLDSERVER is the source fileserver, D$ is the drive letter on the Source Server, and D is the drive letter on the new server.

What are those switches doing?

/E Copy subdirectories recursively, (including empty ones.)
/ZB Use ‘restartable’ mode, and if this fails use ‘backup’ mode.
/copy:DATSOU Copy Data, Attributes, Time Stamps, Security, Owner, aUditing information
/R:3 Retry three times, if you don’t specify this, it will retry one million times!
/W:3 Wait time between the retries above.
/log Will output the log to the folder we created above.
/V Produce output in verbose (detailed) mode.
/NP Do not show percentage progress

Robocopy Step 2

The second time, the command is virtually the same, with one extra switch, (see below).

[box]robocopy \\OLDSERVER\d$\FOLDER D:\FOLDER /e /zb /copy:DATSOU /MIR /r:3 /w:3 /log:c:\ROBOCOPY-Logs\Last-Copy\FOLDER.log /V /NP
[/box]

/MIR This is the ‘mirror directory’ switch, and people are scared of it. Why? Because in the documentation it says it removes or ‘purges’ files. People mistakenly think that it will remove any files from the source that do not exist in the destination. This is incorrect it will only remove files from the destination that no longer exist in the source.

It Has Not Copied Share Permissions!

That’s correct, I never said it would, it copies NTFS permissions, ownership and ACL information. If you want to copy Share permissions then use the smigdeploy tools from the link I posted above.

Can I Copy the Share Permissions Afterwards?

Yes, if you take a look at the following article, (I wrote a while ago,) you can see me doing just that, after a file copy.

Migrating – Folders and Share Permissions

I Can’t Copy Profiles / I get Permissions Errors?

Make sure the user you are using to copy files with, is a member of the ‘Backup Operators’ Group.
Make sure you execute the Robocopy command from an administrative command window.
Try doing the copy from the SOURCE server.

XCOPY – Insufficient Memory

Posted on 17/11/2015 by Migrated

KB ID 0000810

Problem

If I’m migrating client data, I use Xcopy a lot, especially if I want to preserve the permissions. One of the questions I usually ask is “Do any of your users have file names that are very long, i.e. longer than 256 characters?” Because if you are moving a lot of data and it’s been running for a few hours, then suddenly fails saying ‘Insufficient Memory‘, then that’s probably what the problem is.

Solution

1. At the point of failure, you will have successfully moved some data, so you want a solution that just moves the remaining data, Robocopy will do that for you.

Note: For Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012, and Windows Vista/7/8, you will already have Robocopy installed, for older clients you will need to install the 2003 Resource Kit.

[box]

Syntax

robocopy "source" "destination" "options"

robocopy S: D:Shared /MIR /SECFIX /SEC

Note:Robocopy by default will retry 1000000 times, and wait 30 seconds each time (if it has a problem). You might want to add /R:3 /W:1 as switches to stop that.

[/box]

/MIR – Mirror the two locations, this will copy the difference IN BOTH DIRECTIONS! (Simply use /E if you don’t want this).

/SECFIX – Checks the Permissions on ALL FILES as it goes through (to make sure)

/SEC – Copies the data with its security ACL’s intact.

Use Robocopy to copy only newer files/folders

Thankfully this is the default behaviour, simply run the same command again.

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Deleting Folders With ‘Long Filenames’ (Source Path Too Long)

Problem

Solution

Method One: Use Robocopy

Method Two: Use a GUI Tool

The Good

The Bad

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links