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Saturday, November 17, 2007

Microsoft Windows "BUG"? Not Really


Here is a piece of information I want to share to you, a glitch on Microsoft Windows, on creating a Folder, anywhere, and naming it as:


CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7, COM8, COM9, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, and LPT9.


Try to create a Folder anywhere... let's say, on your Desktop or on your Local Disk C:\ and name it as CON. See that it won't allow you to do so, instead it automatically changes to its default name "New Folder".


Explanation:

As said by Mathias Schwarz:

It's not that weird. 'con' is a reserved word from the old DOS days, simply meaning 'console'. If you wanted to create a new text file in DOS you could type 'copy con newfile.txt' meaning copy from the console to newfile.txt. This would let you type some lines and when you ended the file with ^Z (DOSish for 'end of file') you would have a file called newfile.txt containing whatever you wrote in the console. This is indeed still possible in the Windows XP console, and can you see what mess it would cause if you let files or folders have the name 'con'? What would 'copy con newfile.txt' then mean? BSOD?

and Russ Watts confirms the suggestion by giving the list of other DOS devices that can't be used as folder names: CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7, COM8, COM9, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, and LPT9.

source: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27053



But wait! You can still create one! folder named as "CON" or "PRN" or any reserved word from the old DOS days.

Steps:

1. Open Command Prompt (Start - Run, type cmd)

2. On the Command Prompt, type cd\ then hit Enter

3. Now type md\\.\\C:\\con then hit Enter

4. Go to your Local Disk C:\... and there you have it! A Folder named as "CON"

the question is, how do you delete it? even typing rmdir con on thr Command Prompt is useless... hahahaha