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All you have to do is open WIN.INI in your Windows folder (double-clicking should open it in Notepad). Just look for a section in the file with the following heading, and edit the drive-letter (and path if needed):
[winsetup]
source_disk_path=x:\
This is not as much as it seems, as LFNs occupy more than one directory entry - one for the legacy DOS equivalent (8.3 - eight characters plus a three-letter extension) plus any successive entries needed to store the LFN. If you have a lot of folders in the root directory, each with a long file name, you can soon hit the 512 limit. This does not apply, however, to folders and their sub-folders - just the root directory of a drive.
Simply renaming the files in 8.3 fashion may not work, because Windows 95's file names are case sensitive. For example, if you create a folder named Win95App (or even Win95app), two directory entries are still taken up - one that stores the DOS equivalent, and one that stores the version with the uppercase and lowercase letters.
To ensure that you're not taking up unnecessary directory entries, choose View/Options in Explorer, then uncheck the box "Hide MS-DOS file extensions for file types that are registered" (if necessary) and click OK. This step ensures that you rename an entire file, not just the part before the extension. Then in your root directory, select a file or folder (but not the Program Files folder or any other folder that contains programs) and press F2. Type a short name for the folder in all uppercase letters, and press Enter. The folder name will reappear in lowercase except for the first letter and will occupy only a single directory entry.
To confirm that you've actually eliminated extra directory entries, open a DOS box, type cd\, and press Enter to get to the root directory. Then type dir /p and press Enter again. Examine all the file names on the left and right sides of the list. If each name on the left has the same capitalisation and length as its corresponding name on the right, you know it is using only one directory entry. Press a key to continue the directory listing; repeat this until you've looked over all the items in the root folder.
Finally, return to Windows Explorer, choose View/Options, and restore your preferred setting for hiding extensions.
However, before doing all this, why not check that you haven't got a whole lot of files with LFNs sitting in the root. They can build up, and moving them might clear up any problems. But you should always avoid crowding root folders anyway, and it makes much more sense to sort out folders and files in a hierarchical fashion. This way everything is ordered and quickly accessible.
Useful Commands
DIR /V is a DOS 7 command which displays the amount of "slack" or wasted disk space in a folder. To include sub-folders, add the /S switch. So if you go to the root directory of your drive and type: DIR /S /V you can find out the total wastage on disk in bytes and percentage.
Then there’s the new /B switch which displays only long file names (with their paths). So if you typed DIR /S /O:N /B /P /V you would get a listing of all the files in the folder and all its sub-folders, in alphabetical order, with only long file names being shown, pausing with each screen and ending in a statement of total size of files and the space allocated. The difference between the two figures is the total amount of slack.
If you've Shutdown but realised you wanted to go to DOS, fear not. You don't have to reboot then choose to go to MS-DOS mode. Simply type: mode co80 to clear the "OK to turn off computer" screen and end up at C:\>.
