Why You Can’t Name A File CON In Windows
Why You Can’t Name A File CON In Windows
The short answer is “backwards compatibility”. The long answer is… well, it’s the rest of this video.
MORE BASICS: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL96C35uN7xGLLeET0dOWaKHkAlPsrkcha
Written by Sean M Elliott and Tom Scott
Graphics by William Marler https://wmad.co.uk
Audio mix by Graham Haerther https://haerther.net/
I’m at https://tomscott.com
on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tomscott
on Facebook at https://facebook.com/tomscott
and on Instagram as tomscottgo
Tom Scott: Have you ever wondered about why [obscure fact I’ve never wondered about]?
Me: Well, I sure do now
spoilt milk that’s how it is indeed
Thats tom scott for you
Hes wrong. You actually CAN name a directory “CON”. From command line type “mkdir \?C:CON” . This will create at folder 📂 at the root of the C: drive called CON.
I was like, whaaaaaat, let me try it
As a Conman, this feature caused massive losses to my business as i was unable to folder my plans
Try using Linux instead
@Xkyrie K1001 GREENGER!
@Chris Stoble 🐄
I wonder how many people made their profile pic green just for this joke
I’m almost impressed that Tom didn’t use the word “legacy” even once in this video.
Also, as always, great work.
That’s because Tom’s not old enough. 🙂
I remember 14 years old me trolling people on irc by having them type /con/con on mirc and crashing their computer
At least you did not like Billie Eyelash
@Legitimate LMAO
@Legitimate i’m 27 and i like billie
I looked for a comment about this :D. You’re not the only one. Was a favourite trick back in the day to cause BSODs.
In French « con » means “moron”, so we just thought that Windows was a bit susceptible.
@John B. Rush – Me too fck
I understood it to mean something… a bit more rude.
In Spanish means “with”
I think I heard an urban legend that this whole thing was because someone called Bill Gates “a con”.
In french It actually means “vagina” but people use it to mean “moron”
“if you’re using a windows computer, try this” ok. dammit. hes right.
“So why should I use Linux?”
“You can name your file ‘con’.”
shut up and take my bootable usb
Ben Yarmis rm –help ;D
@bettafish Or: rm — –help
@Ben Yarmis Or worse, someone could change the behaviour of your shell program by creating smart filenames such as –help, -rf , -rf / :’D
In both cases, the optional/positional separator *–* comes in handy : *rm — –help*
For most of the forbidden characters, you’d have to use an escape character to tell the system to interpret the character literally. Still a handful of grawlixes that’re forbidden though. 🙂
You can most definitely use “con” though.
[tara@tuxmonster ~]$ echo “see, it works!” > con
[tara@tuxmonster ~]$ cat con
see, it works!
[tara@tuxmonster ~]$
bruh imagine working at the centre for computing history and tom scott calls you like “hey can i get an 8 minute long static camera shot of the room that I usually film in?”
My favorite story is that Microsoft specifically reintroduced a DOS bug in Windows 95 after having fixed it, just so that SimCity that relied on the bug would continue to work.
It’s amazing how much terminology in computers is actual still a reference to typewriters/teletypes.
A lot of electrical terms used today trace back to telegraphs
“Relay”, “Contactor”,”Ground”,”Baud rate” and “Static” are examples.
yup. and in the telecom industry, it’s even more apparent how ancient all the systems (and the systems built on those systems) are.
tty on linux stands for teletypewriter
You can still use a teletype/terminal on linux.
Everybody:
*Sees title*
Immediately attempts to create a folder named con
*Doesn’t work*
Watches video
I didn’t try bc I use linux.
Title : “Why You Can’t Name A File CON In Windows”
Me : *Tries to name a file CON*
Windows : *Invalid name*
Me : *Surprised pikachu face*
@xdevs23 Bourne again
@Peter Vaňušanik Linux and other UNIX-like operating systems have a directory called /dev/ where these device files reside. CON would be /dev/tty, NUL would be /dev/null, COM0 to COM9 would be /dev/ttyS0..9.
Since those operating systems were designed with directories in mind, they don’t need to reserve the device files universally. They reside in their own little nook, /dev/.
The original FAT8 filesystem that the original MS-DOS used didn’t support directories. Because of this, as Tom says, due to backward compatibility, even in Windows 10, those device file names are universal.
@Peter Vaňušanik Whoa. I just discovered something cool. You CAN make a directory or file called CON in Windows and you can access it.
You can do it under the Linux Bash Shell. (Yes, Windows has official support for Bash nowadays, in case you didn’t know. Google it.)
Just open the Bash shell and run the commands Peter here listed. It works. You can then browse to the folder in Explorer where those files are and plain as day, there is a directory called con. If you try to open it in Explorer however, you get an error saying the file is not accessible: “The handle is invalid.”
So presumably this file or directory also couldn’t be deleted by Windows. This could prove problematic when trying to migrate data. If you try this out, you’ll want to delete the test files in Bash after you’re done.
@Peter Vaňušanik because Linux sensibly keeps all those device files in /dev where they belong.
Unless you mknod a new device file in your home directory or something silly, but Linux lets you do that because you’re in charge.
i thought this was some weird joke(??) lmao
Tim: Why You Can’t Name A File CON In Windows
Shatner: *in the distance* CON!!!!
Oh hi suicidefox, have you thought of doing more videos?
Snatcher?
Also is your profile picture is the suicide fox from a hat in time??
“New stuff should also support the old stuff”
-Apple has left the chat
Eh otherwise they’re gonna be stuck with it forever. they did it with PowerPC and survived so they know they can do it again… also it’s not hard to recompile and update especially if it’s on the App Store… which is also what they want :/ There are pros and cons to either approach but it could’ve been way worse …
Electroblade 99% of programs are 32-bit? Yep, that’s a fact. Also, you are smart.
@Jasper Janssen “Twice as few features, twice as expensive” Great philosophy there.
Electroblade So… then what are we all running on our modern Macs and iOS devices? Nothing at all?
Most programs can be easily recompiled to 64-bit, and that’s exactly what’s been done.
tom: “backwars compatibility means that you shouldnt have to buy a new printer just because you bought a new computer”
apple: [laughs in planned obsolecense]
PROS: You can still use old programs
CONS: N/A
I see what you did there sir. And I raise it
Take thumbs up and gtfo 😂
0:32 “On that note, did you know you can’t name a file CON in Windows 10?”
Yes, I read the title 33 seconds before.
“there are probably no windows 10 machines with parallel ports…”
Me: sweats in IT for old lab tech
Jay Sea Universal Serial Bus? (USB)
@Jay Sea The company I work for still uses serial ports. We use them to communicate to light sensors and our own custom PCBs that control LED signs.
@Benjamin Williams nice!
Hah – i have a windows 10 machine with a 5 1/4 in floppy drive. still works, as it always has!
All computers in the lab I work for are HP workstation with serial ports.
“people like a mixture of novelty and familiarity” as a UX Designer, I cound’t agree more sir.
Yosep: but sadly, lots of UX designers don’t understand to not reinvent the wheel unnecessarily, and end up creating complexity or difficulty in use, simply for the sake of being new or “modern”. Witness the current flat design trend, which is horrible from a usability standpoint.
(I’m a former UX designer.)
Backwards compatibility: exists
Apple: wat is dis
You want to borrow your friend’s charger? Hahaha, they’d better have a phone with a matching serial number then fool.
Reasons to use Windows
Pro: You can do spreadsheets.
Con: Invalid filename.
Yet another reason to use vim for spreadsheets