GetFinalPathNameByHandle() result without prepended '\\?\'

Here is my code snippet:

char existingTarget[MAX_PATH]; 
HANDLE hFile = CreateFile(linkPath.c_str(), GENERIC_READ, FILE_SHARE_READ, NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, NULL);
if (INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE != hFile)
{
    GetFinalPathNameByHandle(hFile, existingTarget, MAX_PATH, FILE_NAME_OPENED);
    CloseHandle(hFile);
}

However, existingTarget is coming out to be \\?\C:\mydir\etc. How can I get it to return just C:\mydir\etc?

Note: I don't want to check for the string \\?\ and just memmove it, it's a bit too hackish of a solution for this program.

how can I get it to return just C:\mydir\etc

You cannot. VOLUME_NAME_DOS and VOLUME_NAME_GUID always use that format, and is documented as such:

The string that is returned by this function uses the \\?\ syntax.

See the example results in the Community Additions section of the documentation.

Note: I don't want to check for the string \\?\ and just memmove it, its a bit too hackish of a solution for this program.

That is the easiest solution. Otherwise, you have to use other APIs to translate the returned path into a more human-readable path. Such as using the result of VOLUME_NAME_NT with QueryDosDevice(), or using the result of VOLUME_NAME_GUID with GetVolumePathNamesForVolumeName().