The issue:

I am using Enterprise Developer 2.1 and am trying to create a Micro Focus Environment on our Sandbox, which is in a VM environment. I’m using Microsoft Windows Server 12. I am working with the tutorial -->Tutorials: Interface Mapping Toolkit - Mainframe<--. I have Visual Studio Professional or higher, as that is needed in order to generate the test clients (Windows or ASPX test client generation will fail if you’re not using Visual Studio Professional or higher).

I'm am at the "Deploy" step on the IMTK tutorial but am getting errors such as these in the Micro Focus Generator log file:

??? INFORMATION (LEVEL 0) MESSAGE# IG-VM-23043-00-I

The optional CARDIN input file was not found. (Information message only).

Input file '.\\CARDIN' not found.

??? ERROR (LEVEL 8) MESSAGE# IG-INFRA-19400-00-E

Searching for RULEFILES(MERNDRVR), found an invalid directory 'D:\\Program'.

??? ERROR (LEVEL 8) MESSAGE# IG-INFRA-19400-00-E

Searching for RULEFILES(MERNDRVR), found an invalid directory 's(x86)'.

What can the problem be?

The Resolution:

Upon investigation it was found that a feature called "8dot3naming" was disabled on the D: drive of the Sandbox, where all of the Micro Focus software was loaded. This feature was discovered to be necessary to the success of the DEPLOY step of the IMTK Web Services tutorial; IMTK needs to convert long names to 8.3 names as part of the deploy process. After 8dot3naming was re-enabled, and the shortnames on all D: drive folders were recreated, the Deploy step worked successfully and the IMTK Web Services tutorial was a success.

Apparently, Windows 8/Server 2012 was the first to implement this disabling of 8dot3naming on non-system drives.

Currently (as of December 26, 2013) the Micro Focus products do require 8.3 naming. This can be modified either modifying the registry key directly or by using the “fsutil” command (please see the Microsoft documentation on how to do this). 

http://www.windowsreference.com/windows-7/control-8dot3-naming-in-windows-2008-and-windows-7/