>>>>Having a nonexistent directory in the path can make a system really sloooooow.
>>>
>>>
>>>Ooops !
>>>That's true, specially with Vista and Seven.
>>>Does that fit to your case Jon ?
>>
>>If you "trip over" the 254 character per line limit and the last directory name is cut off, you will also end up with a nonexistent directory name.
>
>My path is 382 bytes long. What limit?

Take a look here

Windows Limitations of Path