Folder Bug in XP-Wont allow port names
September 4th, 2006 by 
Patrick S
Just read something interesting on a message board ,
An Indian discovered that nobody can create a FOLDER anywhere on the computer which can be named as a port on your computer (such as CON, LPT1 etc etc.)
This also works when you try to create a file called “CON”, or “CON.”. “.CON” shows up the way it should. It’s comes back from the DOS days.
Thus the following wont work: CON, AUX, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, PRN or NUL.
Give it a try if you want-I have not tested it on vista but I suspect it won’t work either Confirmed…Works on vista (thanks Jordan)
Another Useless fact from me 🙂
Posted in Bugs, Humour, Windows XP | 
13 Comments »
September 4th, 2006 at 6:10 am
Same On Vista
September 4th, 2006 at 6:21 am
Ha Ha Ha thanks Jordan… I thought so. It certinally is interesting
September 4th, 2006 at 8:08 am
Dudes get with the times! It’s not a bug, it’s not an easter egg, I can’t actually remember what it is, but it’s there for a reason 😛 I’ve known about this for yeeaarrs 😛
September 4th, 2006 at 8:24 am
Now thats just weird and cool at the same time! Looks like someone (me) is going to be having fun at work tommorow…
September 4th, 2006 at 10:35 am
It’s been there since the DOS days since they used to be names for actual items, just like in Linux.
To create a folder with these names you have to use dos:
mkdir ILLEGAL NAME
it’ll work from there.
September 4th, 2006 at 11:18 am
Works on Vista means now it’s allowed???
September 4th, 2006 at 4:10 pm
I thought from a particular date XP was nolonger allowed to have easter eggs?
September 4th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
Quoted from file Naming Conventions (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/fileio/fs/naming_a_file.asp):
Do not use the following reserved device names for the name of a file: CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7, COM8, COM9, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, and LPT9. Also avoid these names followed by an extension, for example, NUL.tx7.
Windows NT: CLOCK$ is also a reserved device name.
September 4th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
These are device names retained for legacy support of MS-DOS batch files. They are neither bugs nor easter eggs.
To see how these device names might be used, look at the syntax for the MS-DOS command interpreter provided in Windows XP. Start, run, command. Then type command /?
You can use these devices to create a text file from the command prompt:
C:\copy CON test.txt
{type some text}
Ctrl-Z
And Computer Guru, you cannot use mkdir (or md) to create directories with these reserved device name.
September 5th, 2006 at 10:45 am
Yes, as Herbert said this allows you to write to/read from these ports. CON represents the console, so everything you type to the console will end up on the test.txt file – you’re copying from the console to the file.
*nix uses another approach – each port is a “special file” you write to or read from.
September 6th, 2006 at 3:45 am
Actually you can use any of these names as filenames, should you ABSOLUTELY want to — do at your own risk — (and replace echo and whats in “” with whatever app you want to access it)
Run this from cmd.exe:
echo “Yes you can” > \.\c:\users\username\desktop\COM1
November 1st, 2006 at 4:09 am
Hahaha yay I love useless facts 🙂
December 12th, 2006 at 5:56 pm
If you have Windows XP, why do you use linux?
Basically I dont see any advantages to using linux over windows xp, Im dual booting windows
and ubuntu. Ubuntu is nice and all but I dont see anything that would make me prefer it
over windows.The only thing i have been using ubuntu for is web browsing playing
music/movies (cant play games) which I can do better/hassle free in windows.
So what are the advantages of l using linux over xp?