Illegal File Names in Windows 10

Let's hit 3000 likes! 💜 Ever tried creating a file or folder with a backslash or question mark? Windows will not let you. Well, what if we ignore Windows and do it anyway? Be prepared: Windows will hate us. Big thanks to mattx for getting me into this topic!
0:00 - Intro
0:23 - #1: The WSL Deception
4:19 - #2: Drive Links
6:37 - #3: Unicode Tricks
9:43 - #4: Corrupting Folders
12:38 - #5: Caption Contest Winner
13:00 - Outro
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#lookinside #disallowednames #flytech

[@maximized3041]

NTFS: I fear no men But this thing It scares me corrupt

[@leap123_]

69th like nice

[@XeZrunner]

@YICHEN XIONG The one time Automatic Repair actually did something

[@somerandomguyintheinternet]

Fellow tf2 player?

[@tee.enderxity]

The Automatic Repair Finally does his jobs!

[@Anya-rb7do]

¡¿√√∆¶xfjhvxfb L,negvij

[@____.__._.._]

Windows: I like when users are calm and doesn't mess with me Fly and Enderman: Let us introduce ourselves...

[@leap123_]

69th like nice

[@parinuser]

Ok

[@monnamonsta]

96th like lol

[@Rojal_Banana]

Fly and enderman be one person😂

[@walkiacid9265]

@@leap123_ WHY ARE YOU EVERYWHERE?!

[@KoczulMoczul]

Legend has it that Automatic Repair actually repaired something. Oh wait... It turns out that's true

[@powewq1748]

Almost funny... close...

[@phagerxfostos3913]

@@powewq1748 you stole my profile pic

[@BurritoLad]

Phager Xfostos Google gave you two the same letter and color.

[@kirillsvc]

In fact, it repaired filesystem error on C:\

[@ForeverMan]

You don't know how to be funny

[@swordcrafted]

Windows: you cant use disallowed filenames in ntfs with ME! FlyTech: i know but he can *points to flytech*

[@malwaretestingfan]

Accurate.

[@user-wv8lu3yx4z]

@@malwaretestingfan yes

[@swordcrafted]

When the fly notices you

[@shevakadu]

APFS rules!

[@amogus7]

but *I* can*

[@__builtin_popcount]

9:23 The reason typing a ? directly works is because it's the wildcard symbol for one character, just like * is for multiple. Therefore, o? matches any folder with a two-letter name starting with o. Once you have two folders that fit the pattern, PowerShell doesn't know which one you mean and tells you. The same will happen if you have two folders named e.g. oa and ob, and try running cd o?. It will work if you have just one, but not with two or more.

[@FlyTechVideos]

Oh, TIL. Thanks!

[@VegasProYAYAY]

@@FlyTechVideos Hi

[@saft2529]

@@FlyTechVideos are you responding those days in 2022? i just need a respond of you to check if you are active or no

[@FlyTechVideos]

@@saft2529 yes i am not dead, i am planning new videos

[@saft2529]

@@FlyTechVideos oh ok

[@Steets]

Fly: "I'm going to break Windows" Windows Automatic Recovery: " _No._ "

[@infectious_yt]

I wanna like but not destroy those 69 likes

[@tee.enderxity]

Enderman:"Lets mess with Windows 10" Windows Automatic Recovery:"Don't "CTAC" With me..."

[@tee.enderxity]

@ClassyUtra windows ctac xD

[@tee.enderxity]

@ClassyUtra lmao

[@nil8659]

@@tee.enderxity ctac is a horrible misspell of "cat". also, windows ctac is kinda funny for me

[@avi8aviate]

"Are you noticing a pattern here? All of them are starting with F0. Could this mean something? Let's find out." So the F-Zero franchise *isn't* dead!?

[@garrettv.g.1758]

F-Zero's really fun; for a while it was better than Mario Kart until Double Dash came out.

[@avi8aviate]

@@garrettv.g.1758 I only know that F-Zero's a racing game and that Nintendo basically killed it by not releasing any more games. Kid Icarus is in a similar predicament.

[@kayleighmoore6951]

F-Zero franchise: yep

[@mrpiese1295]

F-zero, best SNES game :D

[@avi8aviate]

@@mrpiese1295 Personally, I prefer Kirby Super Star.

[@TheWTFDubstep]

Windows: I can't handle it Linux: sudo handle it

[@takshilmistry4692]

😂

[@daringcuteseal]

Lolll

[@Canadian789119]

it's su handle it super user do handle it doesn't make sense.

[@OpTubeShorts]

Lol

[@nil8659]

@@Canadian789119 su isn't a command

[@Austeja608]

NTFS is case sensitive but Windows is not Im intrested how this could break

[@adamfra64]

yes

[@T_nology]

Good video idea!

[@honzapat]

Actually, you can edit some regedit, and windows will also be, but so many programs dont account for that, like msvc compiler, so you wont probably break windows, but a lot of other lazy programs

[@bamberghh1691]

@@honzapat isn't registry case insensitive?

[@malwaretestingfan]

@@bamberghh1691 Key names are case insensitive, don't know about values.

[@R.B.]

Windows 3.1 had interesting filename support. Before LFN, I used to use BASIC to make folders with spaces in the names. It didn't like that. I also used it to add an unprintable character to the filename. You could access the folder using the command prompt, but Windows File Manager didn't know how to open it. With few tech savvy people at the time, this was a decently safe way to hide files in plain sight that only I knew how to open.

[@VDani16]

Wow! I am impressed! Windows self repairing actually works in some situations! It isn't that useless. The first time I saw Windows repair working.

[@uwu_peter]

Automatic repair only repairs disk, registry and bcd/mbr corruptions

[@gabrielandy9272]

it can fix many issues, acctualy problem is very common for you to have a issue it can't do anything.

[@bloonsfamily2066]

automatic repair also fixes issues like:missing kernel, boot loader and so on

[@VDani16]

@@bloonsfamily2066 that's nice

[@bloonsfamily2066]

@@VDani16 and also a corrupted c: drive

[@drawdebono77]

Actually, there's one other case you didnt include: creating a folder with three dots at the end of the name. This is actually possible within windows. I actually faced this problem by creating it out of lousyness. I had an mp4 file of the movie "The englishman who went up to a hill but came down a mountain" Now you could see why I was lousy to name the folder, and also, because I thought I could easily reach the 256 characters limitation for a folder path if the download of this file would have folders named the same inside the folder I created in my desktop, which just for the sake of counting, would be initially "C:\Users\edwar\Desktop" 22 characters without quotes. So I named my desktop folder "The Englishman..." exactly like that, with three dots at the end. Well, finally the movie was there, and when the time came, I wanted to move this folder with all its content to my multimedia files HDD. Well, I couldnt do it. My next guess was I simply reached that characters limit, so I tried to rename it. No luck, windows would not allow it. I was able to copy the content (not cutting or deleteing content was allowed either) and paste it in another folder in the desired HDD, which I just named "The Englishman 1995" . After I copied the content I decided to delete the original desktop located folder and its content, but windows didnt allow it. Tried again renaming the folder, again, undoable. Ok, shift + delete: no. Drag to recycle bin, no. Ok, time for extreme measures. CMD: rmdir: no; del: C:\Users\edwar\Desktop\The Englishman blah blah blah", no; rename folder, no. Actually, here it was where I realized what I did: I created a folder that was giving the DOS instruction to go to the previous folder of the string, so whenever I wrote "The englishman who went up..." after any given DOS command, I was ñtaken back to the desktop, no matter if I was using cmd prompt normally, with admin rights, powershell, or even directly from the windows 10 CD repair utility. At this point, I was only really to recover my space from C drive, because its a tiny little 128GB SSD, which dont like a 4GB mp4file in my desktop. Also I was worried this could became a problem afterwards. But if I was unable to delete this folder even from command prompt, what was I to do? Well, actually it was something a little weird I discovered by googling for an answer. Someone suggested to create a compressed RAR file with the program WINRAR, and selecting the option "Delete files after archiving", when creating it. Well I gave it a try... and it worked! Finally deleting the RAR file was no problem as it didnt had an ivalid name, so that was easy. This was the only way this folder was deleted from my desktop. Never thought about using a Linux distro, because I thought the three dots would also been an instruction in there, so I did not even give it a chance. Hope you mae it till here. Only something about a situation that wasnt covered by this video.

[@oniinu]

I've never seen someone confuse "lazy" with "lousy".

[@Temerold_se]

lol

[@SOTP.]

It would have worked if u used unc patchs in the rmdir (or rd) command. Just like that: rd "\\?\C:\Users\Loldontknow\Desktop\The englishman..." /s /q

[@TDXC------]

One time i created a ... folder through new folder option. And it did nothing. Also it was on my main PC. I could just delete it. I didnt have to do like rmdir \q \\?\C:\Users\????? ??????\Desktop\... in cmd Explorer just behaved as if it was just a normal file name. The filename WAS NOT DOTS AND WASNT F046 F046 F046. It just worked for no reason. I was quite scared because I had watched FlyTechs video but... Was it false?? I was on windows and you probably know that,

[@telamont12mc]

I aint readin allat

[@uwu_peter]

12:08 Automatic repair usually only repairs Disk corruptions, light-middle registry corruptions and BCD/MBR corruptions

[@uwu_peter]

Also, since Automatic Repair is part of Windows RE which is on a separate partition, it still can run, except if you corrupt the Windows RE Partition, because then you are totally screwed.

[@jadesanford2857]

if youve never accidentally deleted your windows re partition can you even call yourself good at computers

[@justsomerandompersononthei2595]

Jade Sanford I've purposefully deleted it before. I currently keep it because I have learned that it is actually important.

[@jadesanford2857]

one time while attempting to grow the /home partition for my (then) kubuntu install i somehow managed to format my entire hard drive instead which was pretty epic and cool imo

[@uwu_peter]

@@jadesanford2857 Yeah, In my times I acidently deleted my EFI partition and corrupted the Windows RE partition by replacing files inside the winre.wim file on the partition.

[@sounak5853]

The BGM change while "Did WSL lie to us" reminds me of Ace Attorney.

[@DimiDimit]

Yeah, reminds me of a track from Apollo Justice, I think.

[@JayCeeCreates]

Me: creates "corrupt" in the user folder Windows: *now entering Incognito mode*

[@Austinkeith2010]

me: creates "corrupt" in the C drive and the recovery mode drive Windows: enjoy a dead pc

[@Preinstallable]

The rare occasion when Automatic Repair fixes something.

[@HSHamster]

Windows: It works FlyTech: Something doesn't feel right

[@Creeper5760EsUnCaraBeluga]

again youtube notified me 16 minutes after the premiere end.

[@FlyTechVideos]

damn ... youtube, fix your stuff please

[@Dash2J]

@@FlyTechVideos yes

[@kali6377]

I will explode the chat (Read my name)

[@kali6377]

@Legosploiter NoooOOoOOO

[@energized5785]

Same! :(

[@awwastor]

Just for clarification: Unix systems (including Linux and BSD) technically speaking CAN use names with “/“ and NUL. The limitation isn’t on the side of the system(unlike on windows) but the file system (ext[2-4] doesn’t allow those characters.). So if you use a nonstandard file system allowing for “/“ and NUL in names, Linux can handle it while windows won’t be able to handle filenames of any FS if they include the forbidden characters.

[@bamberghh1691]

While i understand how '/' would work, how would NUL character in filenames work with any of the syscalls? Don't all of them, like open(2) expect a null terminated string for a filename?

[@icedude_907]

The more videos of yours I watch, the more I realise that windows internals are really, really, messy and barely hold together. Also: why is it that Linux drivers can do these things to NTFS partitions and keep it readable, whereas the very operating system NTFS was designed to work well with can't? It's rediculous!

[@FlyTechVideos]

They try to stop people like me from corrupting their OS

[@therobloxianstar4689]

@@FlyTechVideos That's so funny! I don't know if you think it's not funny lol

[@ShoddySleet74]

@@therobloxianstar4689 One thing I accidentally learned from FlyTech is that you should watch the full video before actually trying out something. I made a folder with a space as its name, and now I have an un-deletable folder on my desktop.

[@jc008titan]

wtf windows repair actually repairs?!

[@uwu_peter]

yes, Automatic repair only repairs disk, registry and bcd/mbr corruptions

[@akurasubject9617]

Automatic repair is like 4 parallel universes ahead.

[@xyzzy-dv6te]

@@uwu_peter does that mean it will erase GRUB if I start it when dual-booting with Linux?

[@uwu_peter]

@@xyzzy-dv6te I think Automatic repair will just crash and stop working when it sees that you are using grub, since it doesn´t know what GRUB is.

[@xyzzy-dv6te]

@@uwu_peter I'll have to try that soon

[@Konym]

Honestly this channel is awesome. Learned more about Windows internals through this channel than through 4+ years of using Windows as a poweruser by myself.

[@elSchwaznevvo]

11:59 the whole NTFS FILE SYSTEM was the reason of BSoD

[@alluseri]

It's time to get whooooshed. This is an error code which shows that there is an issue with the file system.

[@nsg650]

i mean kernels do it when you screw around with the file system even linux does it but rarely

[@graceperez9672]

Alluseri r/wooooooooosh

[@DimiDimit]

@@nsg650 Thankfully Linux's errors are usually more meaningful than “EXT4 FILE SYSTEM”.

[@blenderroll2162]

i mean this all is because of the ntfs file system

[@chillshobe8147]

Documentation: Undefined behaviour FlyTech: It'd be rude if I didn't...

[@tiamat818]

This is incredible, but now I'm wondering why windows is reacting like this, especially the last part

[@flp322]

I had hoped the video would go into that!

[@Sniperx102]

If you are programmer might you will understand why windows behaves like that.. I think FindFirst and FindNext APIs will fail in the presence of those characters..

[@nil8659]

@@Sniperx102 yeah,I understand APIs as a small programmer.

[@PabTSM-OfficialChannel]

@@Sniperx102 nope, those characters are preserved for the os for the search bar, location bar, values and more.

[@Sniperx102]

@@PabTSM-OfficialChannel You did not give any news to what ive said, BTW i am a programmer so i know what i am talking about.

[@barkeeper7887]

This is so goddamn interesting i love this channel Your videos are so amazing man, youre my favourite youtuber

[@FlyTechVideos]

Love to hear that

[@barkeeper7887]

FlyTech Videos :)

[@mathias_mp]

Your videos are very, very interesting. It looks like I'm learning something new every 30 seconds (or less). Keep it up, good job!

[@FlyTechVideos]

Thank you :3 I'm also learning a lot during making these videos. I didn't know about any of this 1 week ago

[@taylorscates8015]

@@FlyTechVideos Hi

[@Austeja608]

Windows doesnt like them but NTFS doesnt care

[@justeunviewer906]

what if you put a «con» folder into the «» folders ? can Windows delete them ? :p

[@FlyTechVideos]

It behaves just like

[@renakunisaki]

@@FlyTechVideos what about just creating C:\con?

[@FlyTechVideos]

It's a weird unusable folder but you can create and remove it from within windows

[@U20E0]

@@FlyTechVideos try putting tha < and > in a different order, so >

[@cones914]

@@U20E0 windows would have a mental breakdown from all the abuse.

[@eh9490]

Nice Video about disallowed NTFS names

[@FlyTechVideos]

Thanks for watching!

[@malwaretestingfan]

@Jamesonverse *about a video about disallowed NTFS names

[@TheZelen]

Fun fact: "\" folder behaves the similar way as "..."

[@therisenphoenix6113]

...

[@mstech-gamingandmore1827]

...

[@SuperWindows78]

...

[@ElNoobYT1]

...

[@SuperWindows78]

...

[@zfennica]

It is interesting to see folders named with the disallowed characters, thank you for showing this, your videos are interesting!

[@DavidWonn]

9:45 Regarding the unusual behavior of < and > in filenames, here’s another oddity to consider. A viewer of my last video commented that < and > can actually be used as wildcard substitutions for filenames, provided they are escaped inside double quotes to prevent them from being interpreted in the usual way as redirectors. I personally verified it to work even on older versions of NT and have no idea why cmd.exe would interpret < or > as ? or * though. Could these phenomena be linked in some way?

[@FlyTechVideos]

I have no idea whatsoever. What I know is that these characters are forbidden by NTFS and not necessarily Windows. Thus, all explanations with shells (like wildcards or redirects) seem unsatisfactory...well, except if these limitations were imposed because of Windows in the first place. I don't know.

[@joshbrookens5226]

Now I'm going to boot a friend's PC from a live cd and put folder: on their desktop.

[@mekb1]

4:40 who else remembers going in a loop with mac's "volumes" folder

[@cat1554]

Yep

[@tflsh]

Thank you for the tutorial to make Windows look like Linux with the drive folders! :D

[@Tearnalte]

3:10 most people: nice music Me: tHaT's SuMmOnNiNg SaLt MuSiC

[@kiyoshi_the_devil]

Oh yesssss

[@ZettaBlitz]

help, i can't stop watching your videos.

[@FlyTechVideos]

Don't stop!! 💚

[@huailiulin]

I can’t believe I saw this after this was published! Thanks Fly Tech!

[@BSabbath]

FlyTech : *Uploads Video* Me : *Well it's time to learn something new!!*

[@ncot_tech]

There's some interesting things going on with WSL. If you download something that Windows wants to protect you from - like a PDF or something else that needs "unblocking", and drag it into your \\wsl$ network drive, WSL creates a file called :Zone.Identifier. That file is completely invisible to Windows.

[@FlyTechVideos]

Yup. Check out my "Alternative File streams" video, I explained it in detail there

[@unknownaccount4783]

Interesting fact: When deleting any HTML file, Windows search for a folder named with the same name as HTML, but ending in _files so, deleting "x.html" file will delete "x_files" folder also And, deleting "x_files" folder will delete "x.html" file

[@gamermapper]

That's true?

[@groszak1]

I thought there was some mysterious link behind them

[@biniesh7097]

u put a lot of work into the videos!!!!!! i love this channel. በጣም በጣም በጣም በጣም እናመሰግናለን

[@claudiu7909]

I once made a few print screens on Ubuntu and copyied them on my windows desktop But I failed to realize that the images had the date with / in their name. Windows refused to open them. Or to rename them. It was interesting. Edit: this was some time ago so some details are a bit vague. As fly mentioned / are not permitted in filenames on linux, I don't remember what the separator for date was used, but now that I remember things a little better, I think the problem was the character I used to separate the time (hh:mm:ss), but I don't remember what it was. Anyway, I couldn't use those images until I renamed them in ubuntu, but at first I was confused why windows was basically ignoring their existence. (they also had no thumbnail, not sure I spelled that right)

[@FlyTechVideos]

/ is illegal even on Linux, so that's weird

[@claudiu7909]

@@FlyTechVideos Sorry, my memory failed me. It was some time ago, I don't remember exactly what the illegal character was, but I remember it was something to do with the date or time

[@kruemmelbande5078]

I used linux to name a folder "con" wich, for Windows is very illegal, cuz its for a Driver, and... I cant even copy it off of the usb... I cant open it, i canr copy it, its weird

[@ad2k17]

you dont even havr to use linux for that

[@kruemmelbande5078]

@@ad2k17 yeah, but i have an old laptop that i installed ubuntu on, so, i dont need to mess around with any comand prompt.

[@justsomerandompersononthei2595]

Nomnom Groz The windowing server even runs on bash.

[@franchufranchu119]

@@nomnomgroz8843 nah

[@ad2k17]

in other words, bash ≠ cmd

[@ElijahCiali]

Now, what happens when you put the C:\ folders into a compressed folder?

[@Aura_Mancer]

I think it will try to make a compressed folder of C: Which will make 7z, or WinRAR, or whatever program you're using to ran out of memory, space in temp, or crash do to recursion.

[@remty516]

Watching your videos give me tons of ideas of things to do on school computers. Zipbomb on a usb stick, Illegal names, . folder, "secret folders" (toolbars GUIDs) Hiding stuff in folders... etc

[@davidvelasco4423]

Zipbomb is also known as "billion laughs."

[@burdbath09]

y'know, ive always had a weird obsession with computers. when i was little, they always intrigued me. they always made me ask questions. i still love computers, and flytech, you were one of the first computer youtubers i ever watched. thank you for answering the questions ive had since i was a child.

[@CoradiaClass175]

Out of curiosity, what happens if you run Winload.exe when windows is running, or what happen if you manage to run it in other OS / inside another VM?

[@justsomerandompersononthei2595]

"winload.exe cannot be run in Win32 mode"

[@9rye]

Dang it, woke up 30 mins AFTER the upload :(

[@aleksanderkysiak9540]

Me too, only I'm unsubcribed.

[@Rishi-ql8jj]

I barely subscribe any channel because their content isn't worth of that but your channel provides informative content Thanks and keep up with vids :)

[@jello3064]

Your videos make my day ;)

[@VarunGupta3009]

I try many of these tricks on my live Windows installation, and hopefully, I'll never mess up XD.

[@thecommentato4]

Don’t use those on a real pc. Use them in windows sandbox or vmware

[@munastronaut8147]

the old name: Disallowed NTFS File Names vs. Windows

[@The-pf4zy]

Very interesting video. I love it! ❤❤❤

[@goldenlongbow]

Messing with windows is always funny. I love your videos

[@mihiguy]

At the beginning when you started to mess with NTFS from Linux, I asked myself which of your modifications would actually survive a chkdsk. Seems that you resolved this question at the end - none of them... (Adding also corrupted filenames on the recovery partition next to WinRE.Wim would probably have prevented chkdsk from "fixing" this issue...) Also, I am not sure why you are surprised that folders in WSL can be accessed by more than one name. Every file/folder within drvfs that contains at least one letter can be accessed by two names, and if it contains e.g. five letters, it can be accessed by 32 names...

[@FlyTechVideos]

I don't quite get your last point, what do you mean "accessed by multiple names"? If a folder is called "folder" then the only way to access it is to actually access "folder", or are you talking about something else?

[@mihiguy]

@@FlyTechVideos When accessing a file in DrvFS from WSL, it is accessed as if the filesystem was case insensitive. So a file called "folder" can also be accessed as "foLdeR" etc. This difference between U+0041 (A) and U+0061 (a) may seem "smaller" than the difference between U+F022 and U+0022 (as we as humans are used to not distinguising between upper and lower case letters) , but from the point of WSL it is exactly the same.

[@FlyTechVideos]

Okay, but I was never wondering about case sensitivity. Being case insensitive surely is a thing that has to be implemented extra because for a computer, that's 2 random different bytes. I don't think there is any special handling for 22 and F022, especially because trying to access the folder with 22 didn't work at all fron WSL...

[@morsikpl]

Writing "o?" works, because '?' is special character for "single character", like '*' is for "multiple characters". It worked becasue you had exactly one directory called "o". If you create two, the '?' will be consufed and try to load 2 directories into command line (at least that's how it would work in bash) - what actually happened later in the video ;)

[@FlyTechVideos]

Ah, I see. Thank you!

[@prodnayah]

This was actually really interesting and educational

[@Nik-dz1yc]

as someone who uses Command line for executing and doing alot of complex stuff, characters > and < are used for reading and writting to files and they are interrupts. The fact that windows is able to handle them without completely destroying itself is impressive

[@FlyTechVideos]

Well not really, as you can see. Linux, on the other hand, can do it without issues.

[@romanhredil3799]

What if someone sends you an archive which contains some files with illegal characters in filenames and you try to open it?

[@lychy645]

it wont open

[@bottering_one]

windows will refuse to open the archive's or maybe it wont open and windows will struggle itself¿?

[@reynoldcracker02]

Using C: as file names might actually be used in hacks. Imagine a program only let you create and open file in your restricted path but the name cause windows to instead search in the Root directory 🧐

[@nikkiofthevalley]

Soo basically a sandbox escape? Would be _really_ easy to fix though, just disallow any path with "C:" in it.

[@retropcs88]

I remember when installing GTA Vice city the shortcut would be named Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Windows went completely batshit while trying to delete it

[@gamermapper]

Private use characters can be used by fonts as anything you want, it just won't be assigned by Unicode

[@mierlenkintanar1430]

What happens if you place

[@xyzzy-dv6te]

Probably BSOD

[@PhonicUK]

You should have tried folder names like "NUL", "LPT" or "CON"

[@uwu_peter]

I think he already did in another video

[@molybd3num823]

@@uwu_peter That was Enderman i guess

[@anic1716]

That can be possible with CMD: md .\con\

[@justsomerandompersononthei2595]

Anic17 But don't try it on your host, do it on a VM.

[@anic1716]

@@justsomerandompersononthei2595 no problem, I have tried it and no G BSOD nor errors

[@monkeyjammersvr]

Thanks for telling me this! I’m new to Windows and I’m getting a pc on March 3rd.

[@MrJay_0xJ]

Thats realy nice video! 👍👍👍

[@FlyTechVideos]

Thank you very much!

[@MrJay_0xJ]

@@FlyTechVideos well how we can find you?

[@isabelle5547]

What would happen if you were to put the corrupted folders into a zip file, and then unzip it in windows?

[@malwaretestingfan]

I think it would not unzip, with a hex error maybe.

[@Austeja608]

You create a black hole

[@RecycleBin0]

what if we hide a test virus in the 'folder' folder? will AV software be able to detect and remove it

[@taylorscates8015]

You get rid of stuff right

[@taylorscates8015]

Do you

[@RecycleBin0]

@@taylorscates8015 oh yes

[@nighttone2983]

Wow this video is fantastic

[@Lampe2020]

In Linux only / is forbidden in folder names as it's the path separator, all Unicode characters are allowed, except /. I don't know exactly why Window$ blocks so many characters, but the colon is for accessing "Alternate Data Streams" for files on NTFS, which are for example used to tell Windoe$ a file is from the internet.

[@lucianothewindowsfan]

When I have first seen the PartedMagic logo, I thought it said R-Rated Magic.

[@FunkyFurret]

I saw FartedMagic.

[@therobloxianstar4689]

@@FunkyFurret LMAOOOOOO

[@robloxboxertblocked9636]

@@FunkyFurret XD Ur pc crashed bc it died from laughter

[@seven7000_]

idk why i am here but ok

[@kali6377]

X2 xd

[@Crazylom]

You should be at heaven, bro.

[@seven7000_]

@turtleboy23 No im not

[@seven7000_]

@Kenn Honson X i choose other

[@CopyMain]

I'm here for learning the deep from windows

[@VictorGamerLOL]

Why does windows react in such a way when using this characters? Is it something to do with ascii or Unicode?

[@sonambasak6590]

Amazing!

[@abloogywoogywoo]

A colon " : " is an illegal filename. But the ratio symbol, Unicode U+2236 " ∶ " is not. Have fun.

[@justcrimson.7584]

Confirmed

[@groszak1]

The ratio actually replaces the colon in the Windows 10 clock on the the taskbar

[@darkex45]

Idea: what if you use cheat engine to mess with system processes?

[@I.____.....__...__]

3:00 An old trick to deal with filesystem objects with illegal characters in their names was to use wildcards, for example to "fix" a file called "foo*bar.txt" you could run "ren f* a" (or something similar). It may or may not work in different circumstances and different versions of Windows, but it's a quick and easy option to try before resorting to something more complex.

[@normal_human-dh3kz]

If you make a folder for game save back ups in steam and use the folder naming feature there you can put slashes in the names

[@Certifiedinsurance]

All of illegal naming restrictions may suspect to be some what related in Windows Registry functions as file, which is also CLSID in Recycle BIN as {clsid}. < > is also registry Archives which could almost be create as files or text.reg.

[@PhunkBustA]

all your videos rack my brains out but i love it 😘

[@FlyTechVideos]

:3

[@MonochromeWench]

Automatic recovery actually fixed the problem. First time ever!

[@cmyk8964]

If anyone’s wondering, the Unicode points U+F000~F07F are in the Private Use Area.

[@shishioko]

You can create / or \ files in the drives root directoryby using HxD and edit the drives file allocation table and modify a existing files name

[@hibutima3]

SO if you go to registry editor and choose where all of the file types are configured, you can see a very Long file type, so copy that and make a file with that file type name it is a Explorer file, which has a white Icon of the windows Explorer and the app is called "Windows Explorer"

[@rdkonevrd9898]

Great now i know how to troll people in a unique way with folders lol thanks Great video

[@gallium-gonzollium]

There was a bug on my old USB stick where Onedrive would add a Documents and a Shared Documents folder twice, both in the same directory listing. I checked Properties in case any characters slipped through, but no! Duplicated folders with the same name and I could open both by all means in Explorer. Weird.

[@p15209]

WSL is a highly customized version to run as integrated as possible in the deep roots of the OS, so it's actually part VM and part (integrated with windows). So, it could be just following windows rules.

[@c_zx7103]

Folder: and Folder*: why does everyone hate me PartedMagic: I don’t hate you that much

[@Donnyf3841]

I'm liking this background music

[@carter3012]

I have no idea what's going on in this video but it's fun to watch anyway 😂

[@supersonictumbleweed]

What about contents of corruption-seed folders? Are they deleted or moved to lost-and-found by repair tool?

[@Murmel_Bahn]

I've had an issue when I disconnected my hard drive (not what I am booting from) while my laptop was in power saving mode and replaced it with a new one, the new hard drive got corrupted somehow and crashed any computer I pugged it into. This was probably a different issue, since WIndows wasn't able to repair it. I could use a sata to usb converter and plug it into any running windows pc and the drive would crash windows immediatly.

[@markusTegelane]

The illegal filenames actually caused problems for me when I was trying to copy save files from a PlayStation 1 memory card, using uLaunchELF on a PlayStation 2, to a flash drive, so that I could use these saves with an emulator. PS1 save files actually have filenames (not to be confused with save file labels you see on the memory card browser), but you never actually see them, they are only visible to the game. Well, some clever programmers figured out they can get a few extra bytes of save space, without just using more blocks, by embedding some data into the filename. This means that some game saves use filenames that are perfectly fine on a playstation, but can cause problems if accessed from a Windows computer. The solution would be to rename the file with a PlayStation 2 first, before copying to a flash drive, and then put the raw save file into a memory card file using software such as memcardrex and then within the software itself, rename it to what it was before so the game actually loads the save file after loading that memory card file onto the emulator.

[@ImXyper]

*whatever they do, WSL refuses to acknowledge their existence* mood

[@laggynacho]

EPIC MUSIC BTW

[@firstdingus]

Another funny thing, if you name a folder for example CON with the WSL method you can't access it with the explorer or cmd but only with the linux terminal. So you can just hide files inside it. Renaming does not seem to work either.

[@Soup7674]

fly: be prepared! windows will hate us windows: i wasn't made for this goddamnit

[@mr3_def]

5:35 so if u had permissions and the drive wounldn´t be in use, and it would start deleting the whole directory, and then it comes to the point were it would be deleting the files on the desktop, what would happen?