NTFS itself will handle paths up to 32000 characters. The ANSI file I/O API is the one that imposes the 256 character limit. The Unicode API calls can be coaxed to use the full path length, but that API is apparently incomplete. I.e. there are instances where an ANSI call has no Unicode equivalent, so you're stuck if you need one of those. My guess is that M$ avoided that trap by restricting all stock file access utilities to the ANSI API calls.