Trying to copy/move some (but not all) workflows outside of Knime seems to generate subfolders that have infinate recursive depth. The copied / moved workflows are then broken and cannot be used in Knime - and further more, seem also to become undeletable.
Whilst this is a windows problem - Windows filemanager tools appear to be unaware of virtual directory links/junctions... it would be nice to have a "workflow folder repair tool".
Seems the only quick and safe way to copy/move workflows in windows is to use 7zip to compress them first. BTW, the Knime "import workflow" tool seem excessively slow?
KNIME doesn't use any symbolic or hard links or any other fancy file system stuff. It's all plain directories and files. If copying a workflow outside KNIME breaks it then something is wrong with the application that created the copy. It's perfectly legal to copy workflows and groups outside KNIME. You only need a refresh of the workspace afterwards.
Yes, long file names may cause problems under Windows. Although the file NTFS system supports them, the Windows Explorer doesn't (God knows why...) and will indeed destroy the workflow.
You can use Long Path Tool to solve the problem of copying files and folder wich has long path error and it also solve the problem of filename or extension too long. It is very useful to solve such type of problem.