Win95 long file names & PowerBasic
<snip>
Quote:
>Someone somewhere wrote that DOS6.22 can handle long file names if
>they are put into quotation marks. If that is true, then DOS6.22 must
>have some way of coping with long file names.
You remembered wrong. That is the DOS that under Win95 and Win98. It is
DOS 7. Dos 6.22 only supports 8.3 file names. The long file names are
hidden in extra "volumne label" entries in the directory. Only the
first such entry in the root of a DOS volume is used as the volume label,
the rest get ignored. Try this: Format a floppy under 95 or 98 (do not
put on a volume label) , put some files in the root that have long file
names, now take the floppy to a DOS machine. Note: you can't just boot
into DOS mode. Must be running real 6.22!
Use your favorite sector editor and look at the directory sectors. First
note that your floppy has a volume label even though you did not specify
one at format time.
Even better: Format under 6.22 with no label. Take the floppy to your
Win9x machine. Put on a file with a long file name like
My_Long_File_Name_File.txt (contents unimportant). Go back to the DOS
machine. Your floppy now HAS a volume label.
The is special software that you could run under DOS 6.22 to figure out
what the long filename is given the shrt file name. The DOS itself does
not support them.
--
ATB
Charles Kincaid