Odd quirk with shared directories in XP...

Hi,

I have found an odd problem in Windows Explorer on XP SP2. If I name my folders the same as the first part of file names in that folder, they won't get shared properly. For instance, I have all of my MP3s ripped to folders named by group and album name (ie. Creed - Human Clay). The MP3s in that folder are named with the same folder name plus the song title (ie. "Creed - Human Clay [01] Are you Ready.mp3 ").

I just acquired a new iPod Nano but I don't have a USB2 port on my desktop. So instead, I shared my music directory on my wired Ethernet LAN, and mapped a drive to my laptop (net use y: \\desktop\music). Then I ran iTunes on the laptop, and hooked up the iPod to it's USB2 port. That worked fine for all MP3s which did not share the precise folder name as the folder they are in. This problem actually has nothing to do with iTunes because when I go into a command prompt and CD to the directory (ie. CD y:\Creed*), it works and puts me in the "y:\Creed - Human Clay" directory, but issuing a DIR command from that same directory comes back with "File Not Found ". Consequently, iTunes cannot add any of those MP3s to its directory as it does not see any of them.

When I move to another directory, for instance "Bryan Adams - On a Day Like Today ", the DIR command works. The MP3s in that directory don't share the identical name as the directory as they made the file names go over 64 characters (ie. Bryan Adams - On a Day [01] How do you feel tonight.mp3). That was a limitation of CD burners when I first made these MP3s years ago. All of the MP3s in that directory work. I have gone over my thousands of MP3s and have found this problem is universal. Every directory where the directory name is entirely contained within the first portion of the file name cannot be shared properly. In every case, the simple solution is to add a character to the directory name (ie. ZCreed - Human Clay). When I do that, the share works perfectly. Any character will do, even a space (as long as it is not trimmed by the OS).

Does anybody know how to fix this, other than renaming every directory? If I rename them all, every playlist I have which had a hardcoded path will no longer work. Also, I have been sharing my MP3s over the network for years, and I have never come across this problem before. I have to assume it was a fairly recent Windows Update which "broke" something.

- I have checked the File and Folder Permissions for MP3s in "bad" directories, and made them "Full Control" for "Everyone ". No change.
- I have created brand new directories with the same name using the Copy/Paste function (after renaming the original) but that didn't work either. If I renamed the directory to its original name, I couldn't issue a DIR in that directory on the share any longer. As soon as I named it anything else, it worked.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
R.

 

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

Thanks,
R.