Many thanks, all sorted now. The windows limitation of 256 characters in the file name includes the entire directory structure as well, so by moving my PC backup directory into my root directory I saved enough characters to allow all files to be copied.
Many thanks, nice product, works very well.

Are you able to transfer files with any other FTP client?

I am trying to backup a website and have numerous errors when trying to transfer files (using simple ftp) which have long names.
Here is a tyical error message:
Can't open file 'C:\my directory\1000 hp Heal __Preparing for the run.jpg'.
Copying files from remote side failed.
PORT command successful

This error seems to be to do with my PC end of this transfer

however files with slightly shorter file names transfer fine
I am using windows Vista, the latest release of WinSCP 4.1.7

regards, Mike