VSSConverter and DOS 8.3 short names
Last week, I got a customer email about an VSSConverter error “ERROR: TF203013: The path $/XXXXX is in the DOS (8.3) short path format and is not supported. Enter a full path to the item and try again.” Today, I came across this problem again on this forum post. So I decided to blog here about the issue.
Let’s assume you use VSSConverter coming with TFS2008 SP1 to migrate a VSS database to TFS2008 server. During the analyze phase, VSSConverter will detect all DOS8.3 name and put a warning message for each in the analysis report.
Now, you need to follow one of the following two steps before starting the VSSConverter
migrate phase:
1. If there are only several of the items and you can afford not to migrate them. You can just destroy the items from the VSS datavase. (Note that you need to destroy them, not just delete, as VSSConverter will migrate deleted item over).
2. If there are many items, or you don’t want to destroy these items. You can follow this article to change TFS server setting files to allow DOS8.3 name temporarily just for the migration. Remember to change the setting back once the migration is done.
If you use VSSConverter coming with TFS2008 SP1 but migrate to a TFS2005 server. VSSConverter will still report DOS8.3 warnings in the analysis report. However, you can still migrate them without changing anything on the server as TFS2005 doesn’t block you from adding these files.
For older VSSConverter users, it is highly recomended that you upgrade to TFS2008 SP1 version of the VSSConverter as there are a lot of improvements with the new version.
