[Samba] linux -> windows special characters in filenames problems

[Kaleb Harper]

I'm running Samba 3.32 on my linux server to share files with the windows
computers on the network. My problem is that windows doesn't support some
special characters in filenames, like ' : ', that linux has no problem with.
So something (not sure if it's Samba or windows) is mangling directory/file
names containing that character into 8.3 names, which makes it very
difficult to know from windows what's in the directories; I'm having to open
each directory to see the contents, which is quite an annoyance. Here's a
couple of examples of how it's mangling directory names:


'this: is a test'    is getting turned into        'THUKO5~M'
'this: is another test'        is getting turned into        'TPYQ1X~Y'


Since I suspect there's not an easy way to get windows to understand the ' :
' and various other characters that it probably doesn't understand properly,
I was hoping there was a way to change the mangling to something more
readable. I don't care if it removes the ' : ' completely, or changes it
into some other character, I just want to be rid of the 8.3 names. I'm
hoping that it's something that can be done from Samba so I don't have to
reconfigure several windows computers, but I'll do whatever it takes if I
have to :)

I appreciate any help you all can give me.