How to Disable 8.3 Legacy File name Creation in Windows

The 8.3 legacy file name creation is a feature of NTFS that is included in Windows for backward compatibility with older applications. The old MS-DOS file system limited file names to a maximum length of eight characters plus a three-character extension. Eventually, these limitations were expanded with the release of Windows 95, which bumped up the maximum file name limit to 255 characters.

The NTFS file system has to support both the old MS-DOS file naming standard as well as the new standard that allows for longer filenames. When you create a file, the file system creates two names for it: one in the MS-DOS 8.3 standard and another in the latest file name standard. Creating the second file name takes more time and slows down the performance of the file system.

Although this legacy feature has good intentions, it causes the performance of file creation to decrease by 200 percent. Disabling this feature will help you get that lost performance back.

Disabling legacy filename creation kills any application you have that needs the 8.3 file name standard. If you try to run an application that requires 8.3 file names, you will get various error messages. Even though this technology is more than 15 years old, some major software developers still write code that requires the ancient 8.3 standard.

Even though some applications will fail when this feature is disabled, I highly recommend trying to disable it on your computer. In the worst-case scenario, you would have to turn the feature back on again.

Now that you are aware of the possible problems that disabling the legacy file name standard can cause and know what to do if you experience any, you are ready to disable the feature. Follow these steps:

1. Open the Command Prompt by clicking Start Menu --> All Programs --> Accessories, right-click on Command Prompt, and open it as an administrator. In Windows 8, 8.1 and Windows 10 type cmd.exe into Start Screen or Start Menu, right-click on Cmd.exe, and open it as an administrator.

2. At the Command Prompt execute following command:

Code:

fsutil behavior set disable8dot3 1


How to Disable 8.3 Legacy File name Creation in Windows Zy32KkC

3. Close Command Prompt and restart your computer to activate the change.

Enabling the legacy file name feature is also very easy. Just repeat the preceding instructions, but execute fsutil behavior set disable8dot3 0 instead, and then restart your computer.



Below tutorial is designed to help you transform your slow PC into a faster PC.

Tweaking & Optimizing Window Operating System