Dealing with long file names in VB.NET

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Introduction

This article explains using Win32 Unicode calls to handle long file names and paths.

Using the code

This code is basically untested. The FileEnumerator.vb class is straight from Microsoft. Win32Delcares.vb from Microsoft with the declarations changed to Unicode. ioWin32 has: CopyFile_Win32, DeleteFile_Win32, CreateDir_Win32, CopyDir_Win32, GetFilesIncludeSubDirs_Win32, GetDirsIncludeSubDirs_Win32, GetDirs_Win32, GetFiles_Win32, FileExists_Win32, DirExists_Win32, DeleteDir_Win32.

Dim sFiles() As String = IOWin32.UnicodeWin32.Functions.GetFiles_Win32("C:\temp\")
instead of
dim sFiles() as string = system.io.directory.getfiles("C:\temp\")