Of course, careful reading of your post shows that my previous test doesn't demonstrate the issue. So I created another 30 files, this time with long names (testing00xx.txt) and I see what you mean: C:\test>dir test???3.txt Volume in drive C has no label. Volume Serial Number is 405E-0160 Directory of C:\test 10/23/2006 10:08 AM 0 test0003.txt 10/23/2006 10:08 AM 0 test0013.txt 10/23/2006 10:08 AM 0 test0023.txt 10/23/2006 10:08 AM 0 testing0003.txt 4 File(s) 0 bytes 0 Dir(s) 956,870,656 bytes free So the issue is that you want to test against _only_ the long file name. Whereas the kludge MS used to add backwards compatible long file name support to DOS means that each file has, and responds to, two names. If the name is 8.3 then both names are the same. If the name is longer then the two names differ. The secondary problem is that the 8.3 conversion scheme ruins your serial numbers on your photographs.It gives its own serial number to files with the same first few letters, replacing any serials you've used in at the end of the filename. So even "DCIM00*3.jpg" will turn up a bunch of photos whose full name don't include 3 as part of the serial. So you're pretty much stuck if you remain with FAT32 or NTFS. You may get better results if you move the archive onto a linux or mac filesystem. Windows doesn't create 8.3 doppelgangers for files residing on those systems, and will always use the full file name. Alternately, use a search program that goes by the EXIF information in each image. It'll be slower, but it'll also give you a lot more flexibility. Lastly, I imagine someone, somewhere has created a "dir" type utility that you can restrict to long file name matches. If you want to be really kludgy about it, rename all your files with a space in the second letter space of the name. The conversion to 8.3 will remove the space, and as long as you search for files with the space "P MN???3.JPG" in quotes, it'll always search the long file name - the short names will not have the space. There may be other characters you can use as well, which will eliminate the need for the quotes. Good luck. -Adam On 10/23/06, Russell McMahon wrote: > I suppose this has been broken for years. > I'd swear I'd used it recently. > > DIR ABCD????.JPG etc > > no longer returns what you'd expect of olde time. > > And > > DIR ABCD???3.JPG > > returns files with abcdef~3.JPG short file names. > > I suppose you can alter this behaviour somewhere but it's not yet > obvious (to me) how. > Very annoying. > > > Russell.. . > > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist