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View Full Version : [Dixonary] OT: 8-character File Names in Windows XP


Guerri Stevens
July 25th, 2007, 09:31 PM
Does anyone know how the short file names are now derived? I always
thought that if you had a long file name such as Information on Smith
Company the 8-character name would be INFORM~1. I don't remember what
happened with Info on Smith Company but think it would become INFOON~1.
And if you had another file named Information on Jones Company, it might
become INFORM~2.

Anyway, the short reason for my question is that I was using the command
prompt to get listings of files in a directory and I used the /x option
to get the short names as well. I noticed that sometimes the 8-character
names are as I described above and sometimes they are not and I cannot
come up with a logical pattern. As an example, the Quicken software
creates multiple files using the same file name and 4 different file
extensions. So my files would be Stevens 2007.QDF, Stevens 2007.QEL and
so on. I would expect the 8.3 format names to be STEVEN~1.QDF,
STEVEN~1.QEL and so forth. But I see names like ST4269~1.QDF and
ST4681~1.QEL and so on. Note that the "~1" stays the same but the
preceding 6 characters change and although they all begin with "ST" the
next 4 appear to be random, sometimes all numbers and sometimes a
mixture of letters and numbers.

This may have something to do with Quicken, and it may be Quicken that
is creating those names and not the operating system.

I tried using the built-in help for my machine (not the Quicken help,
the main help), but it was hopeless.

--
Guerri

JohnnyB
July 26th, 2007, 09:12 AM
Guerri

MS decision early on in win95 to use a "pretty name" for files while really using the old DOS 8.3 names has caused complete chaos.
Nowadays the most recent operating software actually uses the name you see, but....

As you said originally "CustomersAddressFile.abc" became CUSTOM~1.ABC and "CustomersDiscountFile.xyz" also became CUSTOM~1.XYZ and
then if you made a file called "CustomersDeliveryAddressFile.abc" it became CUSTOM~2.ABC etc - now that all seems OK until you
realise that ir depends on the order of creation

So if you created Customers_USA_Address.abc and Customers_USA_Invoices.xyz they would be CUSTOM~1 files and now you added
Customers_Europe_Addresses.abc that would become a CUSTOM~2 file now you add a Customers_USA_DeliveryAddres.abc - that becomes a
CUSTOM~3 file and add a Customers_USA_Statements.xyz that becomes a CUSTOM~2 file

In other words after half a dozen iterations you have no relationships between the short filenames and the way in which you intended
to organise them

We had to abandon use of longfilenames for related data files while the operating systems were playing the game with pretty names
but in reality using the old DOS 8.3 - even in XP (which tends do do things properly) it is noticeable that nearly all important
files in windows and system and system32 are 8.3 as are the main files in MSOffice

JohnnyB

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com
> [mailto:Dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com] On Behalf Of Guerri Stevens
> Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2007 3:32 AM
> To: Google Dixonary
> Subject: [Dixonary] OT: 8-character File Names in Windows XP
>
>
> Does anyone know how the short file names are now derived? I
> always thought that if you had a long file name such as
> Information on Smith Company the 8-character name would be
> INFORM~1. I don't remember what happened with Info on Smith
> Company but think it would become INFOON~1.
> And if you had another file named Information on Jones
> Company, it might become INFORM~2.
>
> Anyway, the short reason for my question is that I was using
> the command prompt to get listings of files in a directory
> and I used the /x option to get the short names as well. I
> noticed that sometimes the 8-character names are as I
> described above and sometimes they are not and I cannot come
> up with a logical pattern. As an example, the Quicken
> software creates multiple files using the same file name and
> 4 different file extensions. So my files would be Stevens
> 2007.QDF, Stevens 2007.QEL and so on. I would expect the 8.3
> format names to be STEVEN~1.QDF, STEVEN~1.QEL and so forth.
> But I see names like ST4269~1.QDF and ST4681~1.QEL and so on.
> Note that the "~1" stays the same but the preceding 6
> characters change and although they all begin with "ST" the
> next 4 appear to be random, sometimes all numbers and
> sometimes a mixture of letters and numbers.
>
> This may have something to do with Quicken, and it may be
> Quicken that is creating those names and not the operating system.
>
> I tried using the built-in help for my machine (not the
> Quicken help, the main help), but it was hopeless.
>
> --
> Guerri
>

Guerri Stevens
July 26th, 2007, 06:59 PM
What is really odd is that some files that should be, in your example,
CUSTOM~digit.ext, are a totally different thing. This is under XP, but I
admit I have not installed any upgrades or maintenance releases not
knowing when one of them might cause new problems while fixing unknown
(to me) other problems.

I ran into a snag with the naming when using XCOPY to create a backup on
my external disk. Due to a disk problem some time ago, I had to recover
files using a DOS application which assigned the tilde numbering scheme
to the regular file name. So I have files with 8.3 names as their
"regular" names. Of course I should root these out and either delete
them or rename them. But that's a task that will probably never come
into any top priority group! Anyway, the XCOPY problem arose because a
file whose long name resolved into ~2 on my disk, became ~1 when XCOPY
copied it to my backup disk, and the regular-named ~1 file then caused
an error.

I have seriously considered going back to the short names. But mostly
the long ones are not a problem and it is so much easier to recognize
what the files are with the longer names.

I think the newest version of DOS recognizes the long names, but I have
not investigated this.

Guerri

JohnnyB wrote:
> Guerri
>
> MS decision early on in win95 to use a "pretty name" for files while
> really using the old DOS 8.3 names has caused complete chaos.
> Nowadays the most recent operating software actually uses the name
> you see, but....
>
> As you said originally "CustomersAddressFile.abc" became CUSTOM~1.ABC
> and "CustomersDiscountFile.xyz" also became CUSTOM~1.XYZ and then if
> you made a file called "CustomersDeliveryAddressFile.abc" it became
> CUSTOM~2.ABC etc - now that all seems OK until you realise that ir
> depends on the order of creation
>
> So if you created Customers_USA_Address.abc and
> Customers_USA_Invoices.xyz they would be CUSTOM~1 files and now you
> added Customers_Europe_Addresses.abc that would become a CUSTOM~2
> file now you add a Customers_USA_DeliveryAddres.abc - that becomes a
> CUSTOM~3 file and add a Customers_USA_Statements.xyz that becomes a
> CUSTOM~2 file
>
> In other words after half a dozen iterations you have no
> relationships between the short filenames and the way in which you
> intended to organise them
>
> We had to abandon use of longfilenames for related data files while
> the operating systems were playing the game with pretty names but in
> reality using the old DOS 8.3 - even in XP (which tends do do things
> properly) it is noticeable that nearly all important files in windows
> and system and system32 are 8.3 as are the main files in MSOffice

JohnnyB
July 27th, 2007, 03:44 AM
Guerri

New DOS commands (it is no longer the operating system so truly should just be referred to as "command") does recognise long
filenames, but an older copy - particulalry XCOPY would not - so the first 'long' is called ~1 - when it gets to destination
(regardless of what it looked like in 'short' at source) similarly the second will be ~2

The problem you saw (~1 already exists) was because some app had referred to and created ~1 at source so as it actually had that
name then of course it couldn't be copied (because same name already existed at destination)

As I said, it was a nightmare to try and deal with for a software developer with a series of related files, when the opsys can
'take' a filename without you knowing about it; so we didn't - and we provided app-programmers direct calls into the Windows
sub-system for long-file copy, rename and delete. Our "own data file system" we kept at 8.3


Re XP... In my personal experience SP2 is very stable and causes no problems

JohnnyB

Guerri Stevens
July 27th, 2007, 05:38 AM
I have to find out what level of XP I actually have, then maybe if it's
lower than SP2, I'll upgrade to that.

On the 8.3 names, if I use the command prompt and do a DIR /x, I'll get
an extra column showing the 8.3 names. If the "long" name was already
8.3, then that extra column will be blank. Probably the smart thing
would have been to stick with the 8.3 naming conventions, but the long
names are really handy!

The commands are inconsistent and some "old" ones will accept long names
without putting quotes around the names. Others demand the quotes.
Just another thing to drive us nuts.

The whole thing is a mess. The multitasking is handy sometimes, but in
the old days under good old DOS you could work with the system, figure
things out and solve problems. In my opinion what we have now is kludge
upon kludge and a big monster, most of which is not used by most people
and which requires far too much effort when something goes wrong.

You can still buy DOS - I actually have version 10 someplace and may
someday figure out how to install it without ruining anything else. So I
suppose if one wanted to, one could run under the DOS operating system.
I still use some DOS software, although under XP some of it doesn't
fully work (it worked under Windows 2000). I should probably abandon it
and get something else (sigh).

Guerri

JohnnyB wrote:
> New DOS commands (it is no longer the operating system so truly
> should just be referred to as "command") does recognise long
> filenames, but an older copy - particulalry XCOPY would not - so the
> first 'long' is called ~1 - when it gets to destination (regardless
> of what it looked like in 'short' at source) similarly the second
> will be ~2
>
> The problem you saw (~1 already exists) was because some app had
> referred to and created ~1 at source so as it actually had that name
> then of course it couldn't be copied (because same name already
> existed at destination)
>
> As I said, it was a nightmare to try and deal with for a software
> developer with a series of related files, when the opsys can 'take' a
> filename without you knowing about it; so we didn't - and we
> provided app-programmers direct calls into the Windows sub-system for
> long-file copy, rename and delete. Our "own data file system" we kept
> at 8.3
>
>
> Re XP... In my personal experience SP2 is very stable and causes no
> problems