Windows Path Length Limit Reached

INTRO

In many cases, Windows has a default limit of how many characters can make up a complete path to a file. That includes the length of the folder names. The limit is supposedly 260 characters for a path name. But, we've seen it actually stop at 255.

To get around this limit, Windows allows you to make a change in the registry that will allow you to have a much longer path (in terms of number of characters in the path name) up to 32767 characters. A big increase!

Make a registry edit to increase path length

Two ways to make the change. Either run the registry editor yourself (Method 1) or run a prepared script to do it for you (Method 2)

Method 1: Edit the registry by-hand, if you're comfortable making registry changes

• Become an admin user on your system.

• Run regedit

The key to change is located at:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\LongPathsEnabled

Set the key’s DWORD value to “1”

• Reboot to activate the change.

Method 2: Run a script to make the change for you.

• Download the script to enable long pathnames on your windows system by clicking:

https://support.cs.jhu.edu/Win-LongPathsEnabled/Win-LongPathsEnabled.zip

• Unzip the downloaded file Win-LongPathsEnabled.zip

That will result in a file called LongPathsEnabled.reg

• Double-click LongPathsEnabled.reg to run that file.

You may be prompted for admin account credentials. So, enter those to continue.

• Reboot to activate the change.