Notepad++ Cannot Backup Text files - Windows 10

Mark Warbinek

This problem just popped up after the recent Windows 10 updates.

Previously, file names that were more than 12 characters (includes spaces) were savable and Notepad++ backed them up in the nppBackup folder without issue.

Now, Notepad++ throws up an error popup when trying to save a file that has a 13+ character name.

Generally, I can save a files in Windows 10 that have more than 13 characters (ie: 30 characters) , but to get Notepad++ to back these named files as verbose will not work and the error occurs.

Error says, “The previous version of the file could not be saved into the backup directory at: …”

Any fix for this?

Claudia Frank

@Mark-Warbinek

I assume you hit the MAX_PATH (260 characters) limit, which means
the amount of characters in the full path is not allowed to exceed 260 chars, might this be?
If so and because you are on windows 10 there MIGHT be a solution.
Stop npp and edit the registry

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem

add a REG_DWORD variable called

LongPathsEnabled

and give it a value of

See here for the explanation of this.

Note, I don’t have any experience with this key but rumors on the web say
that 32bit applications might have issues when having set this key and using
api calls which do respect that key.

Cheers
Claudia