Get-ChildItem : The specified path, file name, or both are too long. The fully qualified file name must be less than 260 characters, and the directory name must be less than 248 characters.

Question

Hi, Im trying to get the whole path in my server, so i tried that with this following code
Get-ChildItem $sourceFolder  -Recurse | ?{$_.PsIsContainer} |Get-Acl
But then, it showed me somtehing like this :
Get-ChildItem : The specified path, file name, or both are too long. The fully qualified file name must be less than 260 characters, and the directory name must be less than 248 characters.
 I tried to find the solver everywhere and mostly they propose to change the path name, which is impossible, since I am working with my company server, and those folder have already there before i start to work here, then the other ask me to use robocopy,
but all of the trick just dont work
is there any way to solve this problem? thanks

Answer 1

There is no simple solution to this. And it is not a limitation of powershell itself, but of the underlying NTFS file system.
If the problem is that a folder with a name longer than 248 exists anywhere within your directory structure, you are hooped.
If the problem is that some fully qualified path names exceed 260 characters, then, in those cases, the solution already given is to create a psdrive partway up the path from the drive letter or server/share root of the path. Unfortunately, the output produced
will be relative to that psdrive and not to what is specified as the $sourcefolder.
unless you already know where those problematic paths are, you might consider trying to trap those errors and have your script figure out where it needs to create psdrives. You might then be able to calculate the equivalent path for each file or folder and
output that. the programming effort would be simpler to just created a psdrive for each folder encountered, however I expect that would be very inefficient.
Al Dunbar -- remember to 'mark or propose as answer' or 'vote as helpful' as appropriate.