Why can't we create a FOLDER or FILE named "CON"?

[bizzard]

Here is a fact that nobody can create a FOLDER or FILE anywhere on the computer(Windows Operating System) which can be named as "CON". It can be in upper or lowercase or a combination of both. Tried it in Windows 98 and XP. Windows is not accepting it. It shows an error message that a file already exist but we can't find it anywhere.



But, we can name FOLDER or FILE as a group of words containing the word “con”. Do anybody know the reason for this? Is it something related to the DOS command “copy con”?

[Planetgaming_org]

It is because COM1, CON, LPT1 etc are device names and cannot be used as file names. They are reserved words. But you can create a folder with the name con.

Click on Run in the Start Menu
Type cmd.
In the cmd window type md \\.\\c:\con. This will create a folder named con in the C drive.
This folder cannot be deleted from windows explorer
To delete it you need to use the command
rd \\.\\c:\con
You can replace c:\con with the path where you want to create/remove the folder.

[bizzard]

Thanks for giving this information...
Can you please list other names of files or folders which cannot be created using windows explorer? Creating files and folders from DOS by using alt+number key combination, some names are seen in windows but not accessible egalt+256). why this happens? Also is such a problem there in Linux?

[Planetgaming_org]

Files with */ + | \ = ? [ ] ; : " . < > , in their names cannot be created because they have special meaning in dos. Also CON, PRN, AUX, CLOCK$, NUL,COM0, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7, COM8, COM9,LPT0, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, and LPT9 cannot be used as file names.
Linux uses a different File System than Windows, hence these restrictions dont apply to Linux. But you may not use / as a file name in linux.