~ in process path name

[Bob Day]

I HAVE 4 PROCESSE3S THAT HAVE TILDES (I.E. ~1) IN THE PATH, AS THIS ONE DOES
below. All others appear normally. Why is this? DOes this represent an
old process that can be removed or an error?

Thanks

Bob Day



Path: C:\PROGRA~1\NORTON~2\NORTON~1\SPEEDD~1\NOPDB.EXE
Name: NOPDB.EXE
EXE Name: Nopdb
EXE InternalName: NOPDB*
EXE LegalCopyright: Copyright (c) 1997-2003 Symantec Corporation*
EXE Desc: nopdb.exe belongs to Norton Speed Disk. It is used to schedule
when the Speed Disk application should run. This program is should not be
terminated unless suspected to be causing problems.

EXE Author: Symantec Corporation
OS: Windows XP
Windows:
Comments:

 

[Michael W. Ryder]

I HAVE 4 PROCESSE3S THAT HAVE TILDES (I.E. ~1) IN THE PATH, AS THIS ONE DOES
below. All others appear normally. Why is this? DOes this represent an
old process that can be removed or an error?

The tilde (~) in the name is the way programs that can only handle 8.3
names (such as most DOS programs) abbreviate longer names.
Speeddisk was originally written for DOS.

 

[Wesley Vogel]

By default, XP lists both long and short names.

The tilde (~) indicates short names.

Short names are also referred to as 8.3 names. 8.3 names can have 8
characters before the dot and 3 characters after the dot, the file
extension. A longer name is truncated to 6 characters and a ~1, ~2, ~3,
etc. is added.

Program Files is truncated to six letters, PROGRA and the ~1 is added, to
form PROGRA~1. If there were another folder named Program Filesx, it would
probably be truncated to PROGRA~2.

Other examples:
C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1\LOCALS~1
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings

C:\DOCUME~1\ALLUSE~1
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users

long name
[[A folder name or file name longer than the 8.3 file name standard (up to
eight characters followed by a period and an extension of up to three
characters) of the FAT file system. This version of Windows supports long
file names up to 255 characters.

This version of Windows automatically translates long names of files and
folders to 8.3 names for MS-DOS and Windows 3.x users.]]

Information about long file names
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000209.htm

How Windows Generates 8.3 File Names from Long File Names
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;142982

How Windows NT Generates MS-DOS Compatible Filenames
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;99589

MS–DOS-Readable File Names on NTFS Volumes
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkc_fil_gtzp.asp

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In