Filenames too long and Windows can't open the files

There's a bunch of files on a network drive, on a fairly deep path and the directories on most of of have long names. I think that these were originally created when someone copied & pasted the root directory for this group of files from their local workstation to the shared network drive. I imagine that on the local workstation, there was no problem opening the file, but now that they are on a longer path on the network, Windows can't open them when I double-click. I've also tried copying the files, and renaming them to somethign shorter, but Windows is unable to do that as well.

TL;DR

files from someone's workstation on a (hypothetical) path like this:

C:\Documents and Settings\SomeUser\Files\RootOfLongFileNames\LongSubdirectoryName1\...\VeryLongAndDescriptiveAndSpecificFilename.xls
-----------------------------------------^

have now been copied and pasted on to the network like this:

Q:\Dir1\Dir2\ProjectA\FilesForSomething\SomeotherDirectory\Blahblah\RootOfLongFileNames\LongSubdirectoryName1\...\VeryLongAndDescriptiveAndSpecificFilename.xls
---------------------------------------------------------------------^

And the path is now too long for Windows XP to handle.

Any tips as to how I can read these files?

Answer

Try substituting the path with SUBST.EXE. It comes with Windows:

C:\Users\shufler>subst /?
Associates a path with a drive letter.

SUBST [drive1: [drive2:]path]
SUBST drive1: /D

  drive1:        Specifies a virtual drive to which you want to assign a path.
  [drive2:]path  Specifies a physical drive and path you want to assign to
                 a virtual drive.

  /D             Deletes a substituted (virtual) drive.

Type SUBST with no parameters to display a list of current virtual drives.

What you want to do is substitute one of the folders down the chain for a drive letter:

 C:\>subst X: Q:\Dir1\Dir2\ProjectA\FilesForSomething\SomeotherDirectory\Blahblah\RootOfLongFileNames\LongSubdirectoryName1

Now the LongSubdirectoryName1 folder is accessed on the X: drive. When you're done with it you can delete your substitution with subst X: /D

If you need this all the time, then add it to your login script.

Another approach would be to map a drive further down the chain from wherever Q: is mapped.