Reserved filenames in Microsoft Windows

[kareja]

Nobody can create a folder anywhere named as "con".
Not only "con" but you can not create folder named as "aux" and "nul".
This is something pretty cool...
Try it out yourself........

I have no answer for this, I dont why this is so... If anyone have an answer please post it ,so that i can trick some of my friends who claims themselves are best Windows users :lol:

[Will.Spencer]

This is because CON, AUX, an NUL are all aliases for hardware devices.

For the same reason, you cannot create a folder named "COM1".

[sinja]

What do you mean by hardware device aliases???
All these days, I thought they had to do something with the Kernel variables.
Does this apply to any other operating system too? I have used much of the others.

[kareja]

I found a workaround for this in this thread
http://kerneltrap.org/node/5772

"mkdir \\.\C:\con"

Type that at command prompt(without quotes) and go to C:\ and check out.

Earlier I was not able to delete such a folder which I created using the above method.

To delete such a folder, type :

"rename \\.\c:\con xcon"

and

Then you can delete the "xcon" folder manually , in a method of your choice.

[n3rdych1ck]

WEIRD! I did not know that about windows! I guess we learn new stuff everyday, huh?

[kelp]

I've never heard about that before. Why exactly doesn't it let you create those types of folders? Since you CAN create that type of folder in a command prompt, does it affect anything?

[Will.Spencer]

Those names are reserved by the operating system because they are existing names for hardware devices. It's a legacy behavior from old DOS.

They cannot be created (normally) even at the command line.

C:\>md CON
The directory name is invalid.

C:\>

[Bender]

I didn't know this.

I'm glad my name isn't Con and I wanted to make some folders for myself. What if there was a user called Con?

[Will.Spencer]

My name is Will, but I don't have any folders named "Will." :lol: