It&#x27;s not really a simple change: this is Microsoft respecting <i>decades</i> of API backward compatibility. New APIs support much higher PATH length, for what it is worth, it&#x27;s just that a <i>lot</i> of software, for various accumulated reasons, rely on older APIs.<p>For whatever their other faults, it&#x27;s hard to blame Microsoft for treating backwards compatibility <i>seriously</i>. It&#x27;s an amazing thing that in 2015 you can still run VB4-built Win32 application <i>binaries</i> built in 1995. (Not that I recommend people actually do so, given a choice in the matter, of course.)