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Is it possible, with Windows Seven pro, to add restrictions on the naming for files and folders?

Let me explain:

My users can't refrain from using characters like é, ô, or string like l'agence ++.

They also call their files with very long strings, like 30 or 40 characters!

This cause me a lot of troubles, and I lost a lot of time fixing names due to encoding problems with some software, or worth, impossibility to delete or rename files because the NTFS Maximum Path Length Limitation of 260 charaters has been exceeded!

I would like to permit only:

  • Alphanumeric characters, without diacritics [a-zA-Z0-9]
  • dot (.), minus (-) and underscore (_)
  • limit files and folders naming to 10 or 12 characters
  • no spaces
Pascal Qyy
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1 Answers1

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Windows 7 has no features like that, but Windows 2008R2 has some. You can use File Screening to prevent any user to create certain file patterns on a disk. This will also work with users on a client PC that will create files on a Windows 2008R2 File share.

You can access the settings in File server resource manager (if installed).

I don't recommend setting the rules too tight though.

ZEDA-NL
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  • How does this affect the existing files? – Pascal Qyy Mar 21 '12 at 15:44
  • Existing files will be untouched. They can still be opened. – ZEDA-NL Mar 22 '12 at 07:42
  • Hum, I tried it, it is very poor… I just can use `*` for wildcard, and I have to list ALL of the characters prohibited, one by one, like `é`, `*é`, `é*`, `*é*`… Worst of all, the error message for the user is not relevant, like "You do not have the right to access this file, contact your SysAdmin…". Maybe I misunderstood how it work? I untag my question as `answered ` for now, maybe there is other solutions? – Pascal Qyy Mar 22 '12 at 08:11
  • It certainly will not address ALL your wishes, but I don't think any Windows functionality will. Maybe you better look for 3d party tools. – ZEDA-NL Mar 22 '12 at 08:22
  • Do you have some example im mind? – Pascal Qyy Mar 22 '12 at 10:15