More about long file names and the MSDOS port.

1 files changed, 15 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/etc/PROBLEMS b/etc/PROBLEMS
index e8953dbc341..fd1ea15f0fd 100644
--- a/etc/PROBLEMS
+++ b/etc/PROBLEMS
@@ -1490,10 +1490,15 @@ the explanation of how to avoid this problem.
 
 * Emacs compiled for MSDOS cannot find some Lisp files, or other
 run-time support files, when long filename support is enabled.
-(Usually, this problem will manifest itself when Emacs exits
+
+Usually, this problem will manifest itself when Emacs exits
 immediately after flashing the startup screen, because it cannot find
 the Lisp files it needs to load at startup.  Redirect Emacs stdout
-and stderr to a file to see the error message printed by Emacs.)
+and stderr to a file to see the error message printed by Emacs.
+
+Another manifestation of this problem is that Emacs is unable to load
+the support for editing program sources in languages such as C and
+Lisp.
 
 This can happen if the Emacs distribution was unzipped without LFN
 support, thus causing long filenames to be truncated to the first 6
@@ -1503,6 +1508,14 @@ filenames (such as djtar from DJGPP or InfoZip's UnZip program
 compiled with DJGPP v2).  The MSDOG section of the file INSTALL
 explains this issue in more detail.
 
+Another possible reason for such failures is that Emacs compiled for
+MSDOS is used on Windows NT, where long file names are not supported
+by this version of Emacs, but the distribution was unpacked by an
+unzip program that preserved the long file names instead of truncating
+them to DOS 8+3 limits.  To be useful on NT, the MSDOS port of Emacs
+must be unzipped by a DOS utility, so that long file names are
+properly truncated.
+
 * Emacs compiled with DJGPP complains at startup:
 
   "Wrong type of argument: internal-facep, msdos-menu-active-face"