Until recently, if you wanted to create and name a file in a Windows-based application, you were limited to a filename of only eight characters, plus a three-character extension. As a result, your directories were filled with cryptically named files such as STKREPT.XLS and STAT794.DOC. Microsoft Windows NT version 3.1 was the first system to remove this limitation; now Microsoft Windows 95 brings the power of long filenames to the masses. This chapter covers the file systems that Win32 supports and explains how you, as a developer, can support long filenames in your applications.