Enable Long Path Support (Windows only)

Depending on the number of parent folders for the root path of your Intent Application, it can be quite easy to hit Windows' maximum file path length limitation, this can cause various problems to manifest, such as:

  • Errors when extracting/compressing files into / out from .zip files.
  • Errors checking files in or out of source control management (such as Git).

As of Windows 10 1607 it is possible to disable this limitation for all applications.

Configuring Windows to support long paths

New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem" -Name "LongPathsEnabled" -Value 1 -PropertyType DWORD -Force

Configuring Git to support long paths

git config --system core.longpaths true

Troubleshooting

Github Desktop

If even after performing the above steps, you still get a Filename too long error when cloning a repository using the Github Desktop Client, perform the following steps:

  • Browse to the location of your GitHub Desktop installation (default location is %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\GitHubDesktop)
  • Browse to the subfolder: app-x.x.x >> resources >> app >> git >> etc, so the full path would be %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\GitHubDesktop\app-x.x.x\resources\app\git\etc
  • Edit the gitconfig file (in your text editor of choice)
  • Add longpath=true under the core section
[core]
  symlinks = false
  autocrlf = true
  fscache = true
  longpaths = true
  • Restart the Github Client and try the clone again.