Registry setting to use shortname

[Vikram_Gosain]

Hi
I need to do a setting in my windows installer such that the installed location gets the shortname.For eg I installed my product's installer in say "C:\Program Files\Hello" location.

Now when I go to "C:\Program Files" and do a dir/x i see the short names soemthing like "HELLO~2".

Can anyone please help me set the windows short name for my windows installer.

[pv7721]

/X This displays the short names generated for non-8dot3 file names. The format is that of /N with the short name inserted before the long name. If no short name is present, blanks are displayed in its place."

So you say that you see short names (if there were none you would have seen blanks). So I really don't see where your issue is.

[Vikram_Gosain]

pv7721 wrote:

/X This displays the short names generated for non-8dot3 file names. The format is that of /N with the short name inserted before the long name. If no short name is present, blanks are displayed in its place."

So you say that you see short names (if there were none you would have seen blanks). So I really don't see where your issue is.

The issue is that I do not see any short names and I want to modify my installer so that whatever folder user installs in, a corresponding shortname shld also generate ...

that hello thing was an example i gave

[Vikram_Gosain]

I added a "Set Windows Registry-Single Entry" task in the "Install" and changed the following

Key name:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem

Value name: Win31FileSystem

Data type: REG_DWORD

Value:1

http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2005/01/27/362049.aspx

but it is not working

[pv7721]

I'm not sure that there is a particular registry to achieve that. I've just checked for one of my installers and for files and folder that had more than 8 characters in name and/or more than 3 characters for extension their 8.3 counterpart appeared when issuing a DIR /X and for those that respected the above blanks appeared instead.

[Vikram_Gosain]

pv7721 wrote:
I'm not sure that there is a particular registry to achieve that. I've just checked for one of my installers and for files and folder that had more than 8 characters in name and/or more than 3 characters for extension their 8.3 counterpart appeared when issuing a DIR /X and for those that respected the above blanks appeared instead.

Vlad
I gave a name more that 8 characters for the installed folder but i still did not see any shortname.

[pv7721]

Nevertheless, this is NOT an IA specific issue, but a Windows one. A simple Google search would have given you the answer:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/121007 (How to Disable the 8.3 Name Creation on NTFS Partitions):

Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP
To disable the 8.3 name creation on all NTFS partitions, type fsutil.exe behavior set disable8dot3 1 at a command prompt, and then press ENTER.

I imagine that the contrary can be achieved, as in my case I see:

C:\Documents and Settings\Vlad>fsutil behavior query disable8dot3
disable8dot3 = 0

[Vikram_Gosain]

pv7721 wrote:
Nevertheless, this is NOT an IA specific issue, but a Windows one. A simple Google search would have given you the answer:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/121007 (How to Disable the 8.3 Name Creation on NTFS Partitions):



I imagine that the contrary can be achieved, as in my case I see:

C:\Documents and Settings\Vlad>fsutil behavior query disable8dot3
disable8dot3 = 0

But this talks about NTFS file system.I am using FAT32 filesystem.

Actually there is this another program which is reading this short name and doing some processing.So those guys are dependent on my installer.That is why I was wondering that is there any way I can set the short name

[Vikram_Gosain]

Also a basic question related to this is

does InstallAnywhere 2008 Enterprise Edition supports shortname concept.?.I mean any folder's created by IA v9.0 creates corresponding short names .?

[pv7721]

Vikram Gosain wrote:
Also a basic question related to this is

does InstallAnywhere 2008 Enterprise Edition supports shortname concept.?.I mean any folder's created by IA v9.0 creates corresponding short names .?

So, you never mentioned anything about FAT32 in the first place. Again, I'm telling you, this is not an IA feature, but an OS feature (even more, you're inquiring for Windows with FAT32 partitions which is less and less common nowadays). So once again, this thread doesn't belong here in the first place! If you really need 8.3 character I guess that you might need to simply have them in your files and folders.

I strongly recommend you look for this kind of information in Windows-specific forums or to contact Microsoft support (I tried to find this information, but I couldn't, so I think that it doesn't even exist (i.e. normally you cannot disable 8.3 names on FAT32 partitions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.3_filename

An 8.3 filename[1] (also called a short filename or SFN) is a filename convention used by old versions of DOS and versions of Microsoft Windows prior to Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.51. It is also used in modern Microsoft operating systems as an alternate filename to the long filename for compatibility with legacy programs. The filename convention is limited by the FAT file system.

And FAT32 is nothing but a newer FAT version!