Also, you cannot create a file named “con” in Windows, even in the latest versions. It’s a holdover from DOS where that word was reversed for the console. For example, you could type “copy con file.txt” to quickly create a text file from the command line and start entering text.
There’s another interesting fact here: MS-DOS 1.0 didn’t have directories… To print a text file, you could just do TYPE foo.txt > LPT1, since LPT1 wasn’t in a directory (like /dev on Linux).
MS-DOS 2.0 added directories. However, to remain backwards compatible with 1.0, devices were still “global”. You could still run TYPE foo.txt > LPT1 regardless of which directory you were in.
This is why you can’t create files names CON, LPT1, etc. in Windows. They’re reserved globally, which is a holdover from the original MS-DOS version from 1983.
You actually can, if you bypass some translation. \\?\C:\CON is a perfectly valid file path…and creating a file at that path will prevent almost all software from opening it! You can see it in File Explorer, but you can’t delete it without a command prompt.
Also, you cannot create a file named “con” in Windows, even in the latest versions. It’s a holdover from DOS where that word was reversed for the console. For example, you could type “copy con file.txt” to quickly create a text file from the command line and start entering text.
There’s another interesting fact here: MS-DOS 1.0 didn’t have directories… To print a text file, you could just do
TYPE foo.txt > LPT1, sinceLPT1wasn’t in a directory (like/devon Linux).MS-DOS 2.0 added directories. However, to remain backwards compatible with 1.0, devices were still “global”. You could still run
TYPE foo.txt > LPT1regardless of which directory you were in.This is why you can’t create files names CON, LPT1, etc. in Windows. They’re reserved globally, which is a holdover from the original MS-DOS version from 1983.
You actually can, if you bypass some translation.
\\?\C:\CONis a perfectly valid file path…and creating a file at that path will prevent almost all software from opening it! You can see it in File Explorer, but you can’t delete it without a command prompt.