[G4] Truncated Filenames from Windows?

[Steve O'Neill]

Welcome to one of windoze many dirty little secrets: nothing has been 
updated since DOS, only patches upon patches.  Filenames are stored this 
way, and a separate database maintains the long file names.  The 
long-filename data is frequently lost when you copy (esp to an ISO CD). 
  Even some current Moft software uses the 8.3 names.

The number at the end is generated to prevent collisions: Sam's Missing 
Present.jpg and Sam's Migration Patters.jpg will become SAMSMI~1.JPG and 
SAMSMI~2.JPG respectively.  AND - if windoze copies these to another 
directory but happens to get the second one first (perhaps you deleted 
an earlier file before the creation of the second JPG and it filled that 
earlier slot in the directory), the numbers will be reversed for the 
same two files.  Or if you just copy one (Sam's Millionaire Friend.jpg), 
what *was* SAMSMI~3.JPG may now be SAMSMI~1.JPG.


Anne Keller-Smith wrote:

> I noticed when I put it into my Mac that the filenames are all truncated to
> the 8+3 format - you know, the old DOS short filename format? They
> looked like this: SAMSMI~3.JPG
> 
> I am sure my friend didn't name them this way.
> 
> Since newer versions of Windows don't use the short filename convention
> anymore, why is this happening? Any thoughts? I am pretty sure they
> are running Windows 2000 or XP on that machine.