Tag Archives: NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation

Warning: Short file name creation should be disabled

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Symptom: In Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012 R2 you receive the following Warning when running the Microsoft Best Practices Analyzer.

Severity: Warning
Short file name creation should be disabled
Short file name creation should be disabled

What is short file name creation?

Back in the good ol' days of windows, filenames were limited to a format of 8 characters for the name, a period, and then 3 characters for a file extension.  The filename was limited by FAT formatted partitions.  Unless running very old legacy applications, this can be safely turned off to help with performance.

Solution: Complete the following steps below to disable short file name creation.

  1. Open up an elevated powershell console
    Server 2012 - PowerShell - Run as Administrator
  2. Execute the following command
    1. Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem" -Name NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation -Value 1
      Set-ItemProperty HKLM-SYSTEM-CurrentControlSet-Control-FileSystem
  3. Optionally, you can open up registry viewer and confirm the value has been changed.
    Registry Editor - HKLM-SYSTEM-CurrentControlSet-Control-FileSystem

Notes: An official KB article from Microsoft on this topic can be found here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff633453(v=ws.10).aspx