Window OS question/Naming a folder

#1

Not sure where this belongs…?

If I would want to change my Windows 10 options when I name a folder, just out of curiosity, how difficult is this (can I even do it) and what language is it?

Like if I want to use a / in my folder name such as “Fletchdad HTML/CSS” Windows 10 rejects the folder name. (I do not use the quotation marks, that is just for clarity) If it is “Fletchdad HTML-CSS” with a - instead of a / between the HTML and CSS, then all is good.

I do not know if I would bother, but I like using the /.
Thanks.

#2

Long story short: you can’t.

These characters: \ / : * ? " < > | are generally reserved by the OS since they have other meanings attached to it.

in your case: / in Windows is used as a path operator.
Imagine you have a file tree like this: user -> desktop -> file

From an OS point of view the path to that file is

user/desktop/file

So if you had for example a file called like this “File/Name”
The OS will read it as “File” is a folder that contains a file called “Name”

user/desktop/File/Name

Hope it helps :sparkles:

2 Likes
#3

Thank for the explanation.

#4

Just as general advice for development, don’t give folders/files names for aesthetic purposes, use a convention make them easy to read programmatically. So separate-words-with-hyphens or seperate_words_with_underscores or whatever… If you are doing software development it is highly likely you’ll be using a terminal and likely you’ll want to write code that accesses files. Paths that have weird formatting (spaces being the most common weird formatting) are a PITA to deal with.

#5

Thanks for that. I appreciate the advice.