Defeating the 256 character limit when creating a deployment!

If you are creating a deployment and you get a 1304 error or a 2350 error, you have exceeded the 256 character limit for your deployment.

While going through some of the forum posts, I found a solution to the long character limit and I have been able to confirm that it works for "Revit". I am going to assume that it should work for all Autodesk products.

1. In this scenario, I created a Revit Structure 2013 deployment and the files will be located here:

C:\A_REALLY_LONG_DEPLOYMENT_PATH\SERENDIPITY\PNEUMONO-ULTRA-MICRO-SCOPIC-SILICO-VOLCANO-CONIOSIS\HEPATICO-CHOLANGIO-CHOLECYST-ENTERO-STOMIES\HEPATICO-CHOLANGIO-CHOLECYST-ENTERO-STOMIES\HIPPOPOTO-MONSTRO-SESQUIPED-AL-IA\RST2013

Before creating the deployment, a folder must be shared first before the deployment is created. The trick is that the shared path must be as short as possible.

2. Share the folder at: RST2013.

3. Create your deployment via the installation wizard at: \\YOUR-COMPUTERNAME\RST2013.

For the average joe, this may not be too exciting but for a lot companies have pre-designed their shared folders for data management and they typically would like to keep the deployments and the shared templates in the same location, this is cool!

Sample of Shared Data files:

\\DataServer\ACME-ARCHITECTURE-TORONTO\Autodesk\Revit\Shared-Files\Company-Standard-Templates\Metric

Sample of Install Location:

\\DataServer\ACME-ARCHITECTURE-TORONTO\Autodesk\Revit\2013\Deploy\Installx64

The shared folder for anything Revit for Toronto is located here:

\\DataServer\ACME-ARCHITECTURE-TORONTO\Autodesk\Revit\

You can create a new shared folder for the the install/creation of the deployment at:

Actual path:
\\DataServer\ACME-ARCHITECTURE-TORONTO\Autodesk\Revit\2013\Deploy\Installx64

Shared path:
\\DataServer\Deploy\Installx64

I have included some videos to demo the entire process:

Video: Long-filenames-path-deployment-workaround

Video: Long-filenames-path-deployment-installed