Windows & DOS: Issues & Discussions

click start, click run, type in 'cmd', hit enter.

In the DOS prompt:

Code:

cd c:\path\to\dir-containing-file

substituting in your actual directory of course. Then:

Code:

dir /X

and it will show a listing of file names in that directory. The column one from the right contains 8dot3 names, so you can see the 8dot3 name for your file. Then

Code:

cd ..
dir /X

so you can see the 8dot3 name of dir-containing-file. Then

Code:

cd ..
dir /X

again so you can see the 8dot3 name of 'to'.

rinse and repeat until you have the 8dot3 names of your file and everything leading to it. Now you can squash them together into a hideous path like "c:\path_na~1\dir_nam~1\file_na~1" which, while ugly and unreadable, should be accepted by Windows and Windows applications.

Thanks for the patience you've shown so far Corona. I am still struggling. The path is on a different server, so I think that is now presenting me with another problem. The error I get in the CMD screen is "CMD does not support UNS paths as current directories".

I'm getting pretty frustrated at this point. I'm beginning to think I will not be able to do this project and might need a UNIX person to do it.

Oh.

Remote paths in Windows are "special". I doubt MS commandline FTP supports remote paths even if you get past the space in the name problem.

You can map remote paths into drive letters with the NET USE tool, though:

Code:

NET USE X: \\server\path\to\

my_command < x:\input > x:\output

NET USE X: /DELETE

Once you map it in, you might be able to get the 8.3 name(if such things even apply to network drives). Or if the space is just in the path, perhaps avoid it entirely.