Why You Can't Name A File CON In Windows
Why Hacker News recommends it
Linked as a relevant explainer in threads about Windows quirks and reserved names.
What it is
Tom Scott explains why Windows does not let you name a file CON, tracing the reserved device names back to backwards compatibility with DOS.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2020 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Cites gresrun · 2020-04 · on “Macintosh Y2020”
Excel also has a deliberate bug where it thinks 1900 is a leap year because they wanted compatibility with Lotus 123, where the bug was actually a bug! [0] [0] [this video]
Cites irshadshalu · 2020-06 · on “macOS Big Sur Preview”
can't speak about the very recent updates, but windows have been consistent and adamant on keeping the backward compatibility. they still use reserved file names for io devices so that 30+ year old printers can still work, and you can still open a 2000s doc file in office 365. (I'm looking at you Apple, who made many of the 32 bit apps I loved useless) relevant video: [this video] (Tom Scott: Why you can't use CON as filename in windows)
Cites RajT88 · 2023-05 · on “The .zip TLD sucks and it needs to be immediately revoked”
It's wild to me some of the things I never knew, even though I've been using Windows or DOS for probably 35 years. For example, I recently learned you can't name a file CON. Try it. Somehow over all those decades, I've never tried to do this until Tom Scott made a video about it: [this video]