filename banned characters in windows

[ishaan]

hey

dz nebody know why these characters:

\ / : * ? " < > |

are not allowed to be used in filenames in win?

wats diff about them ?

 

[aadipa]

These all charactors have special meaning in OS.


\ / - File System delimiters

: - because it is used to specify mount points (drives eg C: )

* ? - they are wildchars (eg dir *.* dir *.?xt)

“ – it is used to specify long file names (file names with space) eg copy "my long file" e:

< > - streams redirection (eg dir>textfile.exe)

| - pipe (output of one process is input of other) (eg dir |more)

 

[rajkumar_personal]

They are the characters that Windows uses for its own purpose such as getting access to folders, networks, access a mounted drive, and also for various wildcard characters which are used mostly for searching purposes.

Hence it refuses to name any file with these extensions

 

[ishaan]

cool...never thought of that...thanks aadipa and rajkumar_personal

 

[rajkumar_personal]

Always welcome buddy !

We are always there to help each other out, aren't we !