OT: Why does XP choke on the filename - "com1.gif"

Frank D. Engel, Jr. fde101 at fjrhome.net
Wed Feb 9 14:04:48 EST 2005


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Hey, it's Windows.  What did you expect?

I was able to name a folder com16 or some such, btw...

Apparently Windows only blocks the names for ports which actually 
exist.  Makes sense, but what happens when I put my "com16" folder on a 
disk and stick it into a Windows box with 16 or more serial ports?

Actually, I'm going to try making a "com1" folder on a CD (from my Mac) 
and inserting that into a Windows box.  Hmm...

Well, Windows 2000 sees this as not a problem.  You can look inside the 
empty folder and everything.  Same with XP home.

Note: In XP home, creating the empty folder on the desktop and naming 
it "com1" results in Windows quietly switching the name back to "New 
Folder" with no error or anything.  W2K at least complained that the 
file already existed.

Strange inconsistency.

On Feb 9, 2005, at 1:58 PM, Martin Baxter wrote:

>> Thomas-
>>
>> Wednesday, February 9, 2005, 6:26:55 AM, you wrote:
>>
>> TMI> I believe com1 - com23 are the reserved com port names. I just 
>> read
>> TMI> that somewhere?
>>
>> There are other reserved words as well: LPT, PRN, NUL, I'm sure there
>> are others that I can't think of off the top of my head. It's a
>> holdover from DOS commandlines where you don't need the trailing colon
>> in order to reference a logical device:
>>
>> COPY FILE.TXT COM1
>>
>
> Thanks for explaining that, yes of course, MSDOS, I thought they 
> finally
> dumped that ?
>
> But really, a multi-user, multi-tasking, allegedly "modern" operating
> system that can't tell a reference to a file on disk from a reference 
> to a
> serial port?
>
> I think I'm actually shocked.
>
> Martin Baxter
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> use-revolution mailing list
> use-revolution at lists.runrev.com
> http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
>
>
- -----------------------------------------------------------
Frank D. Engel, Jr.  <fde101 at fjrhome.net>

$ ln -s /usr/share/kjvbible /usr/manual
$ true | cat /usr/manual | grep "John 3:16"
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life.
$
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