MAX_PATH limitation
Windows visual diff and merge for files and directories
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#2079 MAX_PATH limitation
WinMerge is suffering from a limitation on Windows XP when the full path to the file exceeds 260 character (MAX_PATH) and does not seem to support the \\?\ syntax to get around this problem. While this doesn't seem like a big deal, when working with multiple branches of java code where each package creates a new directory, it is very easy to exceed 260 characters.
See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365247.aspx for a discussion of the problem.
Current WinMerge version: 2.12.4.0 Unicode
Next WinMerge 2011 beta will have partial support for paths longer than 260 characters. Partial means that copy/move/delete operations in directory view will retain the limit. This is due to SHFileOperation() simply refusing to work with longer paths. I'll probably later adapt some code from 7-Zip File Manager to fix the issue for directory view as well.