Windows® 98 Unleashed

Protecting Long Filenames

You shouldn't use pre-Windows 95 disk utilities on VFAT volumes—they'll destroy your long filenames. If you have a favorite utility you hate to give up, your best bet is to upgrade to a version designed to work with Windows 95 or Windows 98.

If a 32-bit version of the utility doesn't exist, or you can't upgrade for some reason, there is a way to keep using the program, but it's a bit of a pain. You need the Windows 98 CD-ROM and the LFNBK.EXE file that you find in the \tools\reskit\file\lfnback\ folder.

LFNBK is the Windows 98 real-mode Long Filename Backup program. The idea behind LFNBK is to back up not your files, but the names of your files. In other words, for each file on a disk, LFNBK records both the short 8.3 ...