Windows 3.x, like DOS, limited filenames and directory names to eight characters plus a three-character extension for filenames. This 8.3 format became extinct when Windows NT (version 3.1) was released. That version of NT supported both long filenames and long filename extensions, and this change has continued with Windows 95 and now with Windows 98.
Unfortunately, many applications—including more than a few released by Microsoft—have continued to use file/directory utilities that report only the old-style 8.3 format. The only task required to be able to recognize the new, long-format filenames is a very simple matter of changing one parameter: the length of the field receiving the filename information. This topic is covered in Chapter 12, where we discuss the FileView demo (included on the CD), which has no difficulty displaying long directory names and filenames.