MSVC does not support long paths inside Docker container

Open

#622 opened on Nov 6, 2025 9 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Assessment

Difficulty: 4/5
Estimated time: 3-5 days
Newbie friendliness: 45/100

Issue type: Bug
Clarity: Mostly clear
Activity status: Active
Tech stack: docker
Domain: infrastructure, operating-systems

Research direction

Start with the Dockerfile in the linked minimal reproduction repository and run docker build -t msvc-docker-bug . on the stated Windows Server Core base image. Compare the first and second compilations, then review the related Windows-Containers issue for context. Done means the second compilation succeeds inside the container, matching the host behavior.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

bug triage

Describe the bug
Apparently MSVC does not support long paths inside a Docker container. On the host, it works perfectly fine.

To Reproduce
I've prepared a minimal repo: https://github.com/jdoubleu/msvc-docker-bug
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

clone the above repo
run docker build -t msvc-docker-bug .

The Dockerfile should be self-explanatory.

Expected behavior
The second compilation from the Dockerfile should work just as fine as the first one.

The behavior should match the host environment, where MSVC does not have any issues working with long paths. Even when long path support has not been enabled system-wide.

Configuration:

Edition: Windows 11 Pro (10.0.22631 Build 22631)
Base Image being used: mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore:ltsc2022
Container engine: docker
Container Engine version: Docker version 27.5.1, build 9f9e405

Additional information:
Related issue: https://github.com/microsoft/Windows-Containers/issues/361

Dominant language: PowerShell
Stars: 551
Forks: 76
PR merge metrics: No merged PRs in 30d

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

First steps

Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
Open a pull request that references the issue number.