What is maximum character length of a formula in Excel 2000?

I have the following formula, which properly returns a file name and range:
="'C:\Documents and Settings\jhester\Desktop\Testing for
clarissa\[sample"&RIGHT(0&DAY(C2),2)&CHOOSE(MONTH(C2),
"Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug","S ep","Oct","Nov","Dec")&YEAR(C2)&".xls]Sheet1!$A$3:$E$14"

however, when I place this inside a Vlookup() function it returns that awful
VALUE# response.The character count is approximately 220, including spaces
and punctuation. Have I exceeded a length limit or am I missing soemthing
else?
Here is the formula that fails
=Vlookup(A3, "'C:\Documents and Settings\jhester\Desktop\Testing for
clarissa\[sample"&RIGHT(0&DAY(C2),2)&CHOOSE(MONTH(C2),
"Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug","S ep","Oct","Nov","Dec")&YEAR(C2)&".xls]Sheet1!$A$3:$E$14", 4)
Please note in the second example, that I simply added is the "Vlookup(A3,"
at the beginning and the" , 4)" at the end

Thanks for your assistance