Why does the 260 character path length limit exist in Windows?

Question

I have come up against this problem a few times at inopportune moments:

• Trying to work on open source Java projects with deep paths
• Storing deep Fitne

Answer 1

Another way to cope with it is to use Cygwin, depending on what do you want to do with the files (i.e. if Cygwin commands suit your needs)

For example it allows to copy, move or rename files that even Windows Explorer can't. Or of course deal with the contents of them like md5sum, grep, gzip, etc.

Also for programs that you are coding, you could link them to the Cygwin DLL and it would enable them to use long paths (I haven't tested this though)