updating TeXLive packages exceeds Windows path length limit

[Markus Hoenicka]

Am 2013-11-14 11:06, schrieb Corinna Vinschen:
> On Nov 14 10:25, Markus Hoenicka wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I've just downloaded the latest setup-x86.exe to update my Cygwin
>> installation on a Windows XP box. While setup downloads the required
>> packages, it stops with a message saying:
>> 
>> Can't open 
>> \\servername\path\to\Downloads\[url_of_mirror]\path\to\texlive-collection-documentation-base-20130529-1.tar.bz2.tmp
>> for writing: No such file or directory
>> 
>> Problem is, if I try to create a file with the same name manually in
>> Windows Explorer, I apparently hit the maximum allowed path length
>> just after the 't' in 'tmp'. In other words, the package filename is
>> exactly two characters too long on my system and using my closest
>> mirror. Setup exits without updating the system.
>> 
>> Is there a way to fix this? I know that I can try and find a mirror
>> with a shorter URL, but I expect others to bump into the same
>> problem sooner or later.
> 
> You could create a symlink in \\servername\path pointing to
> \\servername\path\to\Downloads\[url_of_mirror] to workaround this
> I guess.
> 
> The only other way to fix this is to fix setup.  A long time ago I
> tweaked setup to get rid of the MAX_PATH path length restriction, but
> apparently this only worked for the files to install, not for the
> archive files.  I'm just looking through the setup code for downloading
> files, and it still calls the OS ANSI file API exclusively, rather then
> the UNICODE API, which is the culprit for this problem.
> 
> Sigh.  This is a lot of work still to do.
> 
> 
> Corinna

Just to close this issue gracefully: I received a patched setup from 
Corinna off-list which no longer caused this problem. The problem may 
thus be fixed in the next setup version.

regards,
Markus


-- 
Markus Hoenicka
http://www.mhoenicka.de
AQ score 38


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