From: "Justin Piper" To: Subject: Long File Name format Long file names are quite simple. Windows simply creates multiple entries for each file with a long name. The entries are tagged with every attribute, including (and this is the key) the volume attribute. Windows sees this, and chains the entries together to make one long file name. The only directory entry that doesn't have all the attributes set is the short filename, which is the only one that makes any sense to DOS, so that's the only one it displays when you type "dir"