making long file names 8 characters or less

I got this zip disk full of drums and sounds that have filenames longer than 8 characters. Some of these filenames are over 8 characters long and identical are until the last few characters which I know would cause an exception if I tried to copy them to my PC. Is there some kind of software or something out there that I can use to shorten these filenames more efficiently than manually renaming each file on the disk? Thanks!

Yes there is.
I use' Bulk Rename Utility'
It's a little complicated to use but very flexible (can do all sorts of rename tasks) so you need to practice with it a bit and read the manual or help files.
It's been a while since I used it but it still seems to be free

http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Main_Intro.php

Happy renaming

CKRename is what I use. Simple, to the point, easy to figure out:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/File-Management/CKRename.shtml

MalaKai wrote:CKRename is what I use. Simple, to the point, easy to figure out:

Looks good. My windows 8 didn't like it much but it seems to have installed ok now.
I will give it a try.

MalaKai, that preview pane is genius

Gives the props to Lampdog, I was searching for a similar program and that's the one he recommended. It's slept on and not maintained anymore but it does the job.

Is there any program that does the same job for mac?

auscience wrote:I got this zip disk full of drums and sounds that have filenames longer than 8 characters. Some of these filenames are over 8 characters long and identical are until the last few characters which I know would cause an exception if I tried to copy them to my PC. Is there some kind of software or something out there that I can use to shorten these filenames more efficiently than manually renaming each file on the disk? Thanks!

If the contents of the ZIP disk were created with MPC2000 or MPC2000XL, and it contains some filename with longer than 8 chars, then you must correct those names on MPC, before you try to mount the zip disk on your PC.
You must not use file renaming tool for that. Let me explain.

MPC2000 and MPC2000XL can only deal with file with DOS file name format, and the way MPC2000 make "long" file name is totally flowed:

For instance let's say you have a Zip disk with those files that are created with MPC-2000;

/filename.snd
/filename1.snd
/filename2.snd

If you Mount this Zip disk on PC (any PCs or Macs), the computer see three files with exactly the same file (as "filename.snd") in a same directory. and as soon as you try to rename any of those files, it'll corrupt file directory.