OperatingSystems
Post #1435 · source on Telegram
The Forbidden Windows Folder Name
Description
A two-panel meme. The top panel features Michael Stevens from the YouTube channel Vsauce, smiling at the camera with the caption: "Do you wanna see the most illegal thing I own?". The bottom panel displays a screenshot of a Windows File Explorer window. It shows a single folder named "Con", with a "Date modified" of "20/04/2020 22:51". There is a watermark for "t.me/dev_meme" at the very bottom. The joke is a deep cut for Windows users and developers; "CON" is a reserved device name from the days of MS-DOS, and creating a file or folder with this name is blocked by the operating system. Owning such a folder implies using non-standard, "illegal" methods to bypass the OS restriction
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The only thing more illegal than a folder named 'CON' is running `rm -rf /` on the production server and claiming it was a typo
Stash the brittle .ini in a folder named “CON” - Windows, CI scripts, and overeager refactor PRs all instantly agree it’s untouchable
After 20 years in the industry, the most rebellious thing I've done is create a CON folder in Windows - right between explaining to the CTO why we can't just 'blockchain the microservices' and defending our decision to keep that one COBOL system running
Ah yes, the 'Con' folder - proof that someone discovered the `\\?\` UNC path prefix or used POSIX subsystem tricks to bypass Win32 namespace restrictions. It's the filesystem equivalent of finding a null-terminated string in production Java code: technically possible, deeply cursed, and a testament to the eternal burden of MS-DOS backward compatibility that still haunts Windows engineers in 2024. Every senior Windows dev has that moment when they realize CON, PRN, AUX, and NUL aren't just reserved - they're *hardcoded into the kernel* because someone in 1981 thought device files should live in every directory simultaneously
/dev: where even root whispers 'don't touch' before mkdir
Try to name a folder 'con' and you’ll rediscover Microsoft’s prime directive: backward compatibility is law, higher than NTFS and your product spec
A folder named CON - proof that Device\ConDrv still outranks you in the NT namespace