You Cannot Create A File Named Con

[teartrack_sos 0]

did you know, that on MS Word, you cannot name a document con? nobody can figure out why! Edited February 5, 2006 by miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG (see edit history)

[jipman 0]

The filename "con" is a reserved device name

Weird indeed.

[PureHeart 0]

Hey, CON is for keyboard input. It's a special file, used as input stream by keyboard.Do you remember this classical DOS command:c:\>copy con file.ext

[wutske 0]

did you know, that on MS Word, you cannot name a document con? nobody can figure out why!

Funny you say that, I noticed that too a week ago , pretty strange if you ask me, but they'll have there reasons I guess (nostalgic? lazy? or just plain stupid? )

[warbird1405241485 0]

This exploit was used years ago in websites to make computers crashing. They simply written a piece of html that redirected you automaticaly to c:\con\con. Because this directory can't exist the computer crashed instead of showing a file not found error. This only worked with IE until version 5.0, after that the bug got fixed, but it was quite annoying to get everytime a blue screen. I tried it out with an old computer of mine and it really worked! Don't try this at home: it can cause serious damage!-=jeroen=-

[cinthia 0]

Notice from szupie:

Please use QUOTE tags when quoting information.

File names in Windows XP Professional can be up to 255 characters and can contain spaces, multiple periods, and special characters that are not allowed in MS-DOS file names. Windows XP Professional makes it possible for other operating systems to access files that have long names by generating an MS-DOS-readable (8.3) name for each file. These MS-DOS-readable names also enable MS-DOS-based and Windows 3.x?based applications to recognize and load files that have long file names. When a program saves a file on a computer running Windows XP Professional, both the 8.3 file name and long file name are retained.
Note

* The 8.3 format means that files can have between 1 and 8 characters in the file name. The name must start with a letter or a number and can contain any characters except the following: * . " / \ [ ] : ; | = , * ? (space) * An 8.3 file name typically has a file name extension that is from one to three characters long and has the same character restrictions. A period separates the file name from the file name extension. * Several special file names are reserved by the system and cannot be used for files or folders: * CON, AUX, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, PRN, NUL.

source: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/


=======================

Method of creating folder/file in following ways:
We can do this by following method
STEP1: goto command prompt
STEP2: type in prompt e:\> "mkdir \\.\e:\con"
STEP3: verify by typing "dir \\.\e:\con"
STEP4: delete the file or folder "rmdir \\.\e:\con"

source: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/
Edited February 23, 2006 by szupie (see edit history)

[qwijibow 0]

POSIX dictates that special device files like this should all go in the /dev/ directory.Why doesnt MS follow even the simple rules, it must be obviouse that having these secial device files in every folder will be hazardous..just imagine if this was the case with unix, and you made a copy of an email called hda.goodbye partiton table

[iGuest 3]

Haha that's neat, I never knew this before. So con was really a way for people to make an easy way to mess up someone's computer? That's pretty neat and crazy at the same time. I'm suprised though that you couldn't make a file named con. Just kinda like one of those old programs I used where I couldn't use cuss words >_< Anyways, new to me really. I wonder if there's anything else that is blocked from being used as the title and stuff XD

[iGuest 3]

y v cannot create folder with name con??

You Cannot Create A File Named Con

 

There is no wonder in that...There is some words like con,com1,com2,clock$ we cannot use as folder name bcoz those words are reserved word by OS..For ex in c,c++ we cannot use else,if are keyword like that only..Those words are some standard device used by OS

Clock$-->system clock

Con-->console

Aux,com1-->first serial port

Com2,com3-->second,third serial port

Lpt1-->first parallel port

Nul-->dummy port

 

 

-reply by 7malai

[iGuest 3]

Help!!! i created a con file!!!!!!!

You Cannot Create A File Named Con

 

I heard on the internet that you couldent createb a con file so I tried it out... First I made a new folder and changed the name to "con".

 

It diddent worke and the folder was still called new folder so I tried to call it "con." this time it gave me an error message and I klicked ok. Then I tried to call it con... (don't ask why probably out of pure boredom) and it worked the file was named con (not con...) well when I tried to delete the con file it gave me an error message it said cant delete data: data cant be read from datasource.

And now I'm stuck with this con file on my desktop.

HELP Please!

 

PS: I cant move it to an other folder, it has 0 bytes and the path is the correct one

 

-reply by unknown

[FirefoxRocks 0]

Help!!! i created a con file!!!!!!!

 

You Cannot Create A File Named Con

I heard on the internet that you couldent createb a con file so I tried it out... First I made a new folder and changed the name to "con".

 

It diddent worke and the folder was still called new folder so I tried to call it "con." this time it gave me an error message and I klicked ok. Then I tried to call it con... (don't ask why probably out of pure boredom) and it worked the file was named con (not con...) well when I tried to delete the con file it gave me an error message it said cant delete data: data cant be read from datasource.

And now I'm stuck with this con file on my desktop.

HELP Please!

 

PS: I cant move it to an other folder, it has 0 bytes and the path is the correct one

 

-reply by unknown

Use Linux to remove the file from the filesystem. If you have an NTFS partition, make sure ntfs-3g is installed in Linux.

[FelixMercer 0]

I never knew about this before. I find it funny how there was so many hacks and things like this that existed and abused. Most of them are patched now adays so you never hear about them.

[iGuest 3]

Cannot Create Windows Folder Named ConYou Cannot Create A File Named Con

"CON" and a number of other character strings are in fact reserved names that go back to the days of DOS and cannot be used to name folders or files.

this is the answer of a simple question why v can't make a file name "con". 

-reply by rohan kapoor

[8ennett 0]

I find it's best to avoid using ms word all together. Thanks to some genius intigrating its own programming language in to word then it's possible to get viruses through opening a word document or accessing templates. It's not as bad as it was in the past, the viruses were able to infect and manipulate software as well as documents, but even so they are still annoying to anyone who gets infected by them.Just thought I would add that little bit of insight to an old post for anyone reading

[Бојан 0]

This probably, i think is a command made from Windows for something and that's why we cannot make a file or folder with the name "Con". That's my opinion...