FORBIDDEN Windows Filenames
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 พ.ค. 2024
- Why you can't create these files.
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▼ Time Stamps: ▼
0:00 - Intro
0:21 - Forbidden Windows Names
1:46 - Reserved NTFS File Names
4:22 - Device Files Explained
6:21 - Purposes of The Files
8:32 - Serial Port Surprise
9:15 - Why Are They Still Forbidden?
10:52 - Creating Forbidden Files
13:06 - Forbidden Characters
14:27 - Path Length Limits
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#Computers #Windows #Tech #ThioJoe - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
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Note: Those device names go back a lot further than dos. I recall them being reserved in the Whatfor FORTRAN compiler back in about 1970 -- my first programming language, FORTRAN 66.
Damn OG, you've got some years over me in the game, my first exotic language was Lotus round about 1983. 😂
u still alive, sir?
Whoa, that’s awesome
@@kanonpvz 🤣
geez, you're probably the oldest person i've met in youtube.
I'm old enough to remember when just making the file "c:\program" would end any windows computer
Actually I got a warning on windows 10 that this path may conflict with something
i think lpt stands for Long Parallel Things
I remember deleting the file itself and instantly regret it
i remember a w98 bug, you were into IRC chatrooms, and someone typed mp3! /con/con/con.wav, and everyone in that room got a bsod and computer stops responding. You had no chance to continue using your computer.
mp3! in IRC was an order to play instantly a sound remotely, if you got the same sound in your computer it played remotely, so, if you put a forbidden name into the file to play, it crashed remote computer instantly. There was a fix in 2000 for it. Windows Me had the bug corrected. Other names were exactly the same and CLOCK$ IFS$HLP$ too.
@@eduardosantabaya5348 You could do it in AOL chat rooms too using a similar sound playing code
*"You know it's real FORBIDDEN When Thio uses a different font"*
Woah
Yeah use the different font
But. How?
Well there is this site that makes different fonts that you could enter into the *TITLE* box
I am not a detective but it makes no sense
Windows: "I must protect you from yourself"
Linux: "Do it, I fucking dare you"
Linux: “This is not actually a problem for us.”
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 me: well actually, if you accidentally mess up a system text file. or uninstall every single program at the same time (including the GUI). or corrupt the kernel. or-
@@bluesillybeard None of which has anything to do with “reserved” filenames, which do not exist in Linux.
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 very good point
on the Linux installer i nearly deleted my secondary drive, but the changes weren't written THANKGOD
Your voice, pronunciation and clarity of language is really appreciated.
Agreed good speaker although sends large amounts or volumes rather of data to foreign ears is complexed and too fast. I might try a slower playback speed, good day.
True, I joke that I'm deaf in one ear and can't hear with the other, which really isn't far from the truth, as I have service connected hearing loss.
Fun fact: If there's two files or folders with the same name with one followed by < and the other followed by >, Windows will mark whatever directory it's in as corrupted. If you were to do this in Drive C, Windows would throw the bug check NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM on boot for a few times, and then Startup Repair would remove the invalid files.
According to the secretary the computer says "No" but to this video I say yes! More of this!
niw
😂😉
??
@@WolfyRed As all other people that have a keyboard google "the computer says no" and you should be enlightened
If you get stuck with a path length limit you can open a command prompt and use the SUBST command to map a drive letter to somewhere deep enough in the path tree. Then you can use Explorer to move (or shorten the names of) files and folders until the items are within the limit for the actual drive/volume. This will help get you out of a jam, but I *strongly* recommend against using SUBST as a permanent solution. IIRC you can also share one of the folders in the tree and it will pretty much work the same.
I could've used this advice many years ago. I don't even think it was caused by Linux but rather that Windows had allowed me to copy the files/folders in the first place.
I've used that quite a few times to get out of a jam.
I've also caught malware using metafiles, even volume shadow copy functions.
I've also did a net use UNC path to drive mount to get around an obscenely long path.
I've also been known to do things like copy con > com1 ath0 ^Z the carat denoting control... Useful for things like label printer initialization strings, when nothing else works to reset and reinitialize the damnable temperamental things.
There's a reason we old, experienced BOFH types command a higher salary! :)
an easier way is to switch to Linux.
Isn't there already an option to get rid of path lengths?
I remember when I did a script for school related to a cone, and wanted to name it 'con' (Cone is romanian) but windows wouldn't let me
so I had to choose a different name
It's good to learn why you're not allowed to name your files like this
You could name it c0n or C0N instead of con and CON
Ah, that feel when you're old enough to actually have used device names in MSDOS.
As in "old enough that you woudln't even have EDLIN to create text or batch files, but you had to use COPY CON
Ah, that feel when you're old enough to actually have used device names in MSDOS.
Ah, that feel when you're old enough to actually have used device names in MSDOS.
*And* the feeling that computers we used to think were pretty cutting-edge are now mostly-forgotten relics of a bygone era.
12:00 : People who followed him without listening to what he had to say must have been like *Bruh*
Path Length Limits, this has been pissing me off for a while and never understood what was going on. Thanks dude, appreciated :)
I spend hours shortening folder and file names just to copy files 🤦♂️
Fun fact, if you create one of these files in a synced to OneDrive folder it will allow you - but give a notification telling you the file/folder can't be synced.
Try it out!
1:00 - The reason that some Unicode characters don't work either is because Windows treats filenames with "special" (read non-ASCII) characters as long-filenames even if they're not literally "long", and when it tries to create a short-filename (8.3) entry for it, it tries to use the closest substitutes for them that it can, so when you try to create a file called LPT¹, it tries to create a SFN called LPT1 which isn't allowed, so it fails. The LFN-SFN substitution mapping has limits, so some do work.
3:00 - It's not just empty files that are stored directly in the MFT instead of in clusters, even small (
And you could cheat on the old days, wanna go to Program Files? cd \progra~1
Then, they started implementing the variables making life ever so much easier to admin the boxen. :)
1:09 Now we finally know ThioJoe's actual name
"Joe"?
@Sami Rami El Garon joe mama
Its been in many videos but ok
Jojo
"Suspect"?
This is great! As COM1 is just a file, you can read and write to a serial port from CMD! Very handy for Arduino stuff!
I'm enjoying these more technical videos! Keep doing more of these!
TomScott made this video too, but you explain it in deeper details :)
tuoo
tuoo
To get around the deep path filename restriction while copying a deep folder to another, just leave a pointer from folder 1 to folder 2, a.k.a a shortcut..
I doubt that anything here will ever be really pertinent for my work at my computer, but it’s interesting enough, and when you have gone to the trouble of making a video like this, the least I can do is honor what you have done by watching to the end.
I remember DOS, where you had 8 characters max for the file name and 3 for extension. That's it.
Tom Scott: Why you can't name a file "Con" in Windows
I watched that one too. It’s similar (because of the same topic) but not an exact copy.
Because it can break some critical spreadsheet somewhere in the world?
And there's me thinking Con was just the real name of Windows :)
4:00 more on this, I guess: in (as far as I know) all modern filesystems, folders and files are basically the same thing - folders are just files that contain references to other files. this lets the computer treat them more or less the same, and also that all of the usual naming restrictions on files also applies to folders.
I love to drop in and refresh things I know and learn new stuff. Thanks
On really old computers, you can redirect any stdout text that would normally go into the console to the null character device, as writing to stdout can take up a lot of CPU cycles.
You can also use wsl to create one by running touch con. rm con also works just fine.
3:57 i use this to keep programs from doing certain things. Ie stop a program from filling up a cache for ads (i assume to show when offline); I delete the ad folder and replace it with ad file and it can no longer save to that folder.
I remember when the RSTS/E operating system on PDP-11s had similar mechanism for naming devices as files.
I started using computers in 1982 with the Tandy TRS-80 this brings back memories. Thanks
long file name (255 chars) error is something that I run into frequently at work. Civil engineering projects get to be very complex and the project names are large to begin with.
Tip: mount the Windows volume under Linux and use Linux file tools (e.g. cp, rsync) to copy those. Works faster, too!
I think you might need a versioning system like git
Things could be worse, you could still be forced to conform with the 8.3 character limit DOS/early WIN9X had. .
I think you can change it in the registry
Use acronyms and v.0
in macOS the only forbidden characters in file names are ":" and "/". ":" was used as a path seperator in really ancient versions of mac os before they switched to /. i guess they still have the ":" forbidden for backwards compatibility even though they literally removed all x86 app support from macOS for no reason.
edit: macOS also has device files but they are all in /dev so you can create files/folders with those names in other folders
Thank you for introducing me to F.Lux!
49 seconds ago...😂 What am I doing with my life
Nobody cares
@@SharonMessage ya ik 😂
@@DarkGamerA xD
Boutta take a dump & learn.
@@toku30 😂
Really Great. Video Thio
I was able to make some files names that shouldn't be able to be named the way they were, Like I made a folder on my phone called "..." and used adb pull The file couldn't be deleted because windows didnt know its extension, I used 7-Zip to create an archive of it and checked "Delete file after compression"
Thanks for making this video. I always wondered why.
I am super meticulous with my file orginization and I use a ton of folder levels. I run into that file path length limit probably at least 2 or 3 times a month.
Laughably, at work, I'm beyond meticulous in file organization. At home, I'm a syslob.
Possible to work around by using a tree of shortcuts instead of an actual folder, with the files and folders themselves just being in limited few directories (few because having just one folder with 'everything' is a technical issue in and off itself).
Though it's just a workaround for a very sloppily written file system.
You can also create one of these 'Unkillable' files in the Android OS. I found this out the hard way. I'm not sure if Linux would be able to delete them but BSD UNIX could using Hex notation for the file name. I'm not sure if you can use hex notation for file naming in either the CMD she'll or the PowerShell.
Love Your Videos! Love From Dubai! ❤️🇦🇪❤️
there is no ae in dubai
On Windows 11, I was able to use the command prompt to rename an existing text file to LPT1.txt. Windows 11 also had no issues opening, deleting, copying, etc. the file. Out of curiosity I decided to copy it onto a USB, and plug it into a Windows XP laptop. There, it had the issues with copying it and deleting, etc. Windows XP's command prompt also did not allow renaming a file to LPT1.txt.
TL;DR, on Windows 11, using these file names works better than on older versions of Windows.
Great series of videos
Fun fact: Some versions of the default Android Camera App used "aux.jpg" as the name for low-resolution previews of some images, so if you had set up automatic backups in Google Drive/Google Photos on a device with that version installed, it would create lots of undeletable files on any Windows PC that was set up to sync your Google Drive folder.
Well, the last time I saw aux used as a device it was for screen printers.
Joe. I have a question. If i buy a new computer will most of all the setting reset? if so i would like to know which settings!
Everytime ThioJoe has a new upload I auto drop everything I'm doing.
ahh yes. I remember the times when I manually fought against worms and malware that uses these forbidden names as their filenames for their payload and stuff. Battle was really tough.
And some malware embedding under restricted permissions in the registry to try to hide from the SA, with multiple processes watching each other for termination.
I used to kill that crap manually, usually via a quick and dirty script, just as a hobby. Never trust the infected computer again, but it's nice to know what the miscreants were doing or trying to do.
Ah, file path length limitations. I have encountered those as well with people who had incredibly long file names inside nested folders each with incredibly long file names as well. Good to know that there is a registry setting for that.
Dude, >PRN sounds like it's a spooler for the parallel port. I'd like to know if there's any way you're aware of to move a spool file for a printer file into another printer file, ie from _LexMark614_ to _LexMark614-2._ Is it possible to move spool files between printers or is there a way to make output queues for them instead. I hate not being able to just grab an output and gift it to another printer. I'm not worried about formatting - I grew up in a time when the device driver was the connecting rod between the keyboard and the chair.
"Consider liking the video because not everyone does" really hit me hard
I used to write Bash scripts for fun, and I used NUL a lot. This video is pretty informative about the other device files. I tried PRN just now and found out it didn’t work for me.
Probably because it still tries to use a parallel port. I wonder if Windows 11 will finally get rid of some of these since it's breaking compatibility with old computers anyway.
@@grn1 you originally had to set what PRN was, LPT1, LPT2, COMx... I think PRN is largely depreciated in every other OS now.
@@spvillano I think there's actually one of these illegal names that should be excluded ASAP from the "denied" status for Windows' filenames list now: AUX! While the others old MS-DOS names: PRN, COM(1-9), LPT(1-9), NUL and CON really has no any other real use, this isn't the case with AUX! Actually there's some other uses of this word - for example, technicians / machine engineers might want to use "AUX" for a folder that contains schemes / draws for an auxiliary parts of machines, including ones fixing a broken machines / electronics, for example. There might be other non-computer instances of use of the word "AUX" as well.
@@user-jm6qf9hd9j and RND, aka RANDOM.
There are a bunch still reserved.
15:05 .Now I know why this Error used to come... THANKS
The good old serial port is still widely used in industrial environments. It is still the main form of communication between maritime safety and navigation equipment. The NMEA protocol is very simple and easy to work with.
Well that no longer exists on modern day Laptops as the Serial Port would have quite bad quality
@@stephensnell5707 Yes, we have to use USB to serial adapters.
nice work, good vid
Hey Thio, where did you get that hott wallpaper in your background desktops?
Thanks for your sharing
Flashbacks to me a few years ago making random (long and forbidden) variable names when I was learning how to code
For a game I was making recently, I made a script named ForcePlayerToGetSavagelyEatenAliveByTillionsOfNanites.cs just for sh*ts and giggles.
And that name is what the script actually did. It was for controlling the particle effect that played when the player died by walking into a nanorobot swarm trap and it caused the nanites particles to swarm around the player, block the cameras view, then despawned the player, spawned in some fake dead player body parts, and then dispersed the nanites. The result was that it really did look like the player was being eaten by nanites.
The maximum file name size means NOT the actual absolute path. You can navigate with Windows Explorer to a directory that exceeds the 254 characters and create a new folder, and a new folder within, then a file. It is even possible to copy those long paths via Explorer using two windows and copy file by file if neccessary.
To copy those folders Windows has the on-board tool ROBOCOPY. It is only text-mode based but has several other features like copying from unreliable devices or network connections.
very informative
Reminds me of the good old IRC chat days, when everyone still had win95. We have sent files with these names to everyone in the chat room. And all had bluescreens.
ThioJoe: Forbidden Windows Filenames
Everyone: *tries to make the forbidden files*
At one time the nul device existed on ALL directories.
Back in the day, we would redirect all output being set to & from the device CON if all we needed was the data that was written to a separate file that we could use.
Hi ThioJoe!
I once downloaded the movie Con Man from a torrenting site. The folder name was Con.Man.2018.1080p and after downloading it I couldn't move it nor delete it nor rename it. I learned to live with it in my computer. Until a few months ago when it dawned on me. I mean, I knew about this, I just forgot about the CON reserved word in my folder name..
Think of the meme potential with this:
Cave of Wonders: INFIDELS! YOU HAVE CREATED A FORBIDDEN FILENAME!
Belle: What's in the developer's directory?
Beast: _Its forbidden!_
...
You make me a smarter person, thanks.
At 8:35 the connector he shows is a VGA display connector, technically not a 9 pin serial connector.
Imma try them now; after all, it's always the "forbidden stuff" that is so good! 👌🏽😈😉
I love his videos they are so amazing
Keep Going bro
0:09 Funnily enough, you can create them with software written to create files with those names. The blacklist seems to be at shell level (Explorer, standard save dialogs, etc.), not on the WinAPI level. I know, because I once wrote such program in Delphi 7 that created (unremovable by any normal means) files named con in any directory I chose just to mess with the IT teacher in my high school who didn't know a thing about computers and should work elsewhere. That was on WinXP though, but I feel like it would still work.
You could also create files with completely empty names (no funny unicode hijinks like a 0 width space needed) using the same method or with forbidden characters.
Dealt with many of that sort. A quick way to find out was to set attribute +s +h on a file and see if they can find and remove it. If they can, it's time to see if they're wearing the big kids shorts. ;)
3:17 You Could use 7-Zip as well. The directory for files: :\[SYSTEM]\...
Oh by the way, A few weeks ago, I took apart an old Windows Vista laptop, and I found that one of the processor chips says "AUX". does this have any relation to device drivers?
Is there a utility or script to auto change file names in windows to replace a colon(:) with a dash?
I understand the behind mechanism of Drivers and how they work. The Basic stuff.
Damm just found this channel... Pretty cool stuff
You should have tried using WinRARs "delete files after archiving" feature :)
yea I ran into this problem when I was cloning a git repo, one of the files in it used 'aux*.png' in the name. Deleting my local copy of the repo became a real pain. Having to go into safe mode and removing it that way or using something like 7-zip to rename or mingw bash emulating terminal to delete it. Super annoying.
Meanwhile for Linux the only restrictions are that you can't name a file with no name or just the Null character ...
....everything else is possible (some are annoying, and so should be avoided)
Forward solidus is disallowed.
I had a big fat folder named con on my desktop for a few weeks until I figured out how to delete it.
TJ, 8:40ish ~ IMG of "Serial port" was 15 pin "VGA Port".
Very informative vidoe
He! you should make a video on what happens erase the reserved NTFS file names! I really would like to see what happens
🤔Could be an interesting way of making sure a folder with important files doesn't get deleted.
Can you do a video about the Desktop Window Manager and Antimalware consuming so much ram/gpu
At least now I could ask my computer teacher hard questions.:)
In a VM, I tried to install win10 and created something using the forbidden characters by booting into a Linux Live CD. All were behaving really differently.
If I tried to create a folder named C:, Windows would take me to C:\ (i.e. the actual C: drive), and if I try to delete that from within Windows, it would actually try to delete the actual C: drive!
Second, if I try to create folders with / and \, some made Windows refuse it's existence and some make explorer to take me into that path, e.g. if I create a folder named Windows\ in the C: drive, it would take me to the actual Windows folder. And again, deleting them would try to delete C:\Windows.
Third, I tried to make folders with double quotes and Windows refused it's existence and some gave weird errors like ERROR: CRITICAL ERROR (the descriptive error name ever).
Creating folders with < or > in the name did kinda the same thing as the others, but creating two folders, one with < and another with > in Desktop (say), I couldn't get access to the Desktop; when I log in to Windows, it gave me an error saying it couldn't access it.
HERE'S THE SCARIEST PART: I CREATED THE TWO FOLDERS WITH < AND > IN THE ROOT OF C:\ DRIVE AND..... GUESS WHAT, IT RENDERED THE OS UNBOOTABLE! Automatic "Repair" didn't work either as it couldn't actually access the C: drive to perform repairs. The only solution was to delete the folders from within Linux Live CD.
The scariest part
Uh what version of windows,newer ones usually delete < and > cus at this point even microsoft realises there is dumbasses
@@fitmotheyap Actually it's a really old ISO: Windows 10 19H1
@@shr1han probably that's why lul
Fun fact: save a file in Word for example with the following name:
@1,2.docx
Then try to rename it from File Explorer File name is like locked 😄
I had a forbidden file. I had a hard drive with a Linux distro and it had the application for running Windows applications called wine. It actually created a file within its structure for corresponding drive letters (e.g. it had a file called c:) which I eventually copied my entire home drive to an external hard drive before nuking my Linux install. This file was backed up to my external drive and Windows will NOT let me remove it.
Hi am your biggest fan thanks for making a video
Can I use the COM1.txt to lock my folder prevent from delete?
You should do a video on naming a user with those device names in windows 7 cuz it was patched up on later versions of Windows
An example of device files outside of windows is: /dev/devicename... It's like that in all Unix and Linux systems...
An example is /dev/sda1 (device, sata device a, partition 1)
How do you make the super/sub script numbers?
If I remember right this partially goes back to and borrows from UNIX systems where everything is a file, even a directory is a special file.
Tom Scott did a video about this.
Some app: *hiding the name*
System: “is this crusty crabs?”
File: “No, this is Patrick”
What if I dual boot and make a AUX.txt file in Windows Partition?
you can still access a folder if the file with no extension has the same name as the folder just when you are typing the path add a extra \ and it will move you to the folder
For some reason, in Windows 11, I'm able to name files CON, AUX, PRN, etc. But not folders.
Most likely, because the files are actually named "CON.txt" or similar, while the folders are actually named just the forbidden file name with no extension.
I had a problem a couple times not allowing longer names in a bunch of folders, but it let me put alot of characters in the root.
Hey man I really got into the issue of very long path length error a while back. It's good to know why windows does that.
Either do a net use on the UNC path to a drive letter or subst the path to a drive letter.
I've had issues with the path limit before in Windows but haven't in a while. I think the program I've used (don't exactly remember which was) used a lot of folders with long random ids :( Not a fun time hahah very interesting