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Q:  Do we have to worry about 8.3 file limits in mozilla?
A:  No, but there are other file name issues you need to worry about.

All OSes that we run on support "long" file names (more than 8.3).  Including OS/2, Win9x, and Mac. (Mac has a 32 limit though, and not all characters are legal in filenames on other platforms).

See NS_MsgHashIfNecessary() http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla/source/mailnews/base/util/nsMsgUtils.cpp#242 for some code that we use in mailnews to convert a filename to something safe for the underlying OS>

I just did a search, and there is other code that seems indicate that on windows 9.x, certain files have to be in 8.3

C:\builds\mozilla\security\nss\cmd\lib\filestub.c(262):  /*    Where +++++++ is the 7 character time representation (a full 8.3 */
C:\builds\mozilla\security\nss\cmd\lib\filestub.c(565):        /* csHost is now of the form <hostname>.rc and is in 8.3 format */
C:\builds\mozilla\config\makedep.cpp(113):        //  Convert filename to FAT (8.3) equivalent.
C:\builds\mozilla\dbm\src\h_bigkey.c(38):static char sccsid[] = "@(#)hash_bigkey.c    8.3 (Berkeley) 5/31/94";
C:\builds\mozilla\intl\ctl\src\pangoLite\pango-utils.c(170):       * Windows, especially in the 8.3 versions of long file names, which
C:\builds\mozilla\xpinstall\src\ScheduledTasks.cpp(87):        char    Src[_MAX_PATH];   // 8.3 name
C:\builds\mozilla\xpinstall\src\ScheduledTasks.cpp(88):        char    Dest[_MAX_PATH];  // 8.3 name
C:\builds\mozilla\xpinstall\wizard\windows\setup\extra.c(3712):    /* Appearently under Win9x, the path still needs to be in 8.3 format

I asked ssu, and he said:

Don't worry about the ones under xpinstall.  They are very special cases.  The ones listed in ScheduledTasks.cpp deals with replacing files that are currently in use.  Under all win32 OS's, the OS will rename a longfile name to shortfilename.

For the one in extra.c,  GetDiskFreeSpaceEx() still requires paths to be in 8.3 format under Win9x.  If the code just querries for files (reading and/or writing), all win32 OS's support long filenames.