Accessing files beyond MAX_PATH in C#/.NET

Question

BACKGROUND

I need to write a tool using .NET version 2.0 at highest (using something off the shelf is not an option for this client for political, c

Answer 1

It should be fairly easy to work around this limitation with a bit of platform invoke, assuming your software has the necessary permissions:

[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
static extern SafeFileHandle CreateFile(string lpFileName, uint dwDesiredAccess,
  uint dwShareMode, IntPtr lpSecurityAttributes, uint dwCreationDisposition,
  uint dwFlagsAndAttributes, IntPtr hTemplateFile);

// Must close/dispose handle separately from FileStream since it's not owned by
// that object when passed to constructor.
using (SafeFileHandle h = CreateFile(longUncPath, GENERIC_WRITE, 0, IntPtr.Zero, 
       OPEN_EXISTING, 0, IntPtr.Zero))
{
    using (var fs = new FileStream(h, FileAccess.Read))
    {
        // operations with FileStream object
    }
}