In the
ANSI version of this function, the name is limited to MAX_PATH characters. To extend this limit to 32,767 wide characters, call the
Unicode version of the function and prepend "\\?\" to the path. For more information, see Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces.
For information on special device names, see Defining an MS-DOS Device Name.
To create a file stream, specify the name of the file, a colon, and then the name of the stream. For more information, see File Streams.
Tip Starting with Windows 10, version 1607, for the
unicode version of this function (CreateFileW), you can opt-in to remove the MAX_PATH limitation without prepending "\\?\". See the "Maximum Path Length Limitation" section of Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces for details