Hamish-

Windows short path names are decidedly NOT for apps that cannot handle Unicode. They were introduced far earlier than that and were intended for programs that could not handle anything but the short 8.3 limits for any given file or folder name. That they often help with avoiding unicode is a side effect.

Sound like your misunderstanding of this may be contributing to your frustration.

Doug,

I'm aware that short filenames are a work around for applications which can't support long filenames (which date from Windows 95). They also seem to nicely work around applications which are too dumb to support valid Windows 16-bit filenames, like Firebird. I don't agree that it's just a side effect that they avoid unicode, since I had unicode parts that fit in the 8.3 short filename format.

I realise that Firebird needs to use either long or short names consistently so as to avoid inadvertently opening the same file by different names (with locking issues and the like), but the solution is to use only short names or handle long names properly.

Hamish