LFN MS-DOS Shortcuts Do Not Run When 8.3 Names Are Disabled

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This article was previously published under Q174456

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SYMPTOMS

When you attempt to run a long file name (LFN) MS-DOS shortcut on a Windows NT client with the shortcut residing on a partition that does not create 8.3 (short) file names, the following error message will occur:

Program Not Found

Windows Cannot Find <LFN Shortcut Name>.pif

This program is needed for opening files of type "Shortcut to MS-DOS Program."

Location to <LFN Shortcut Name>.pif:

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WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, perform on of the following:

Move the shortcuts to a location that does generate short file names.

-or-
Create only short file names when creating shortcuts.

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MORE INFORMATION

This problem can be caused by storing shortcuts on an NTFS partition after having disabled 8.3 name creation with the NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation registry key.
This problem can also be caused by storing shortcuts on a NetWare file server. NetWare supports long file names through the OS/2 namespace. It does not support 8.3 file name creation.

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STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Windows NT version 4.0. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

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