I am not sure if this is a flaw in RM or not. Let me explain.
I am trying to add a photo to a person’s image.
I have a photo that is located here on my hard drive G:\People\Schmidt\Sylvia Day-JoAnne Ethel (Duplessis) Edwards-June Berry-Virginia Ann (Sargent) Weeman-Unknown-Paula (Schmidt) Mansur-Diane (Hale) Lane-Faith (Pingree) Bear-Claudia J Schmidt-Valeria Jean (Richardson) Cox-Sandra Payne-Pauline (Richardson) Bean-T-CR.jpg
When I go to that file and add it as an image to a person’s record, it makes the location like this
\?\G:\People\Schmidt\Sylvia Day-JoAnne Ethel (Duplessis) Edwards-June Berry-Virginia Ann (Sargent) Weeman-Unknown-Paula (Schmidt) Mansur-Diane (Hale) Lane-Faith (Pingree) Bear-Claudia J Schmidt-Valeria Jean (Richardson) Cox-Sandra Payne-Pauline (Richardson) Bean-T-CR.jpg
Why is it adding the “\?\” in front of the drive letter?
I’m have a slight suspicion. But before I spin a wild theory, I have to ask: where are you seeing the ?\ Which screen in RM?
This is where I am seeing it.
Microsoft Windows has a MAX_PATH limit of ~256 characters. If the length of the path and filename combined exceed ~256 characters you will be able to see the path/files via Windows/File Explorer, but may not be able to delete/move/rename these paths/files.
Your file name is 264 plus the extension (If I have counted correctly)
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I didn’t count the \\?\ at the begining or the .jpg lol
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I was going to do it in excel (len count of cell) but then thought AI do a better job with more info
Small configuration change removes this limit. Google it.
With that change, I’ve tested RM with 256 char file names and 5000 char directory path. No problem.
I asked copilot-
Windows file paths that start with \\?\ are “extended‑length” (a.k.a. NT namespace) paths.
They tell the Windows file APIs: “Do not normalize this path — pass it directly to the NT kernel.”
This allows paths longer than MAX_PATH (260 chars) and disables legacy parsing rules.
This was mostly new to me. I eliminated the maxpath limit on my computer a long time ago, so I haven’t run into this.
So my guess is that RM detects that the path you entered is greater than the maxlength limit on your computer (as currently configured), so it adds the prefix to make the path work.
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interesting – thank you for looking into that - I try to avoid names much over 100 chars (usually only for head stones that have multiple family members on are when that occurs. (Before the path)
