WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.560 If, like most of us, you use Windows, at some point you've probably gotten a notification 00:00:04.560 --> 00:00:09.920 that looks like this, telling you that you can't use certain characters in a filename. 00:00:09.920 --> 00:00:17.080 But why? I mean, quotes and question marks are common enough in everyday use, so why can't I just 00:00:17.080 --> 00:00:23.280 put them in the friggin' file and what the heck is going on? Is Microsoft just trying to play mind games with us, or do they actually have a good reason? 00:00:23.280 --> 00:00:29.240 It turns out, these restrictions are due to how the operating system itself reads filenames. 00:00:29.240 --> 00:00:33.880 You see, Windows uses certain characters to denote certain actions the operating system 00:00:33.880 --> 00:00:41.200 needs to follow when it's working with a file. You're probably familiar with how backslash precedes the name of a subfolder, and as such, 00:00:41.200 --> 00:00:45.240 you cannot put a backslash in the filename, since otherwise Windows would confuse the 00:00:45.240 --> 00:00:48.840 filename for another folder that isn't even there. 00:00:48.840 --> 00:00:54.440 Similarly, you can't use a colon, since Windows understands a colon to denote a drive letter, 00:00:54.440 --> 00:00:59.580 which comes at the beginning of a file path to tell Windows what drive to begin looking 00:00:59.580 --> 00:01:02.600 for the file on. What about forward slash? 00:01:02.600 --> 00:01:06.080 Well, these can still be used to point to certain resources. 00:01:06.080 --> 00:01:10.520 Think about how you can have a shortcut on your desktop to a certain web page that uses 00:01:10.520 --> 00:01:17.680 forward slashes in the URL. The question mark, ironically, has the potential to cause Windows some confusion as well. 00:01:17.680 --> 00:01:21.680 You can actually use it as a wildcard of sorts when you run a search. 00:01:21.680 --> 00:01:27.520 For example, if you want to find all the files that match most of a certain filename, you 00:01:27.520 --> 00:01:32.520 can throw in a question mark to tell Windows to return a result for any character in that 00:01:32.520 --> 00:01:37.440 space where the question mark is. So it follows that you simply can't use it in your filenames. 00:01:37.440 --> 00:01:42.160 Oh, and the asterisk is restricted for similar reasons, as if you search for something like 00:01:42.160 --> 00:01:48.400 asterisk.png, you'll get all png files in whichever folder you're searching. 00:01:48.400 --> 00:01:52.960 Moving on, quotation marks are disallowed because Windows reserves them to indicate 00:01:52.960 --> 00:01:56.640 a full path if the path itself has a space in it. 00:01:56.640 --> 00:02:00.440 If you bring up a window shortcut, you can see that the path it's pointing to will often 00:02:00.440 --> 00:02:05.920 include quotes by default. This is especially useful if you're trying to put modifiers after the path. 00:02:05.920 --> 00:02:10.560 For example, if you're trying to force a game to run in a certain sized window, you can 00:02:10.560 --> 00:02:16.120 try putting a space after the filename, then hyphen w hyphen r followed by your desired 00:02:16.120 --> 00:02:21.880 resolution. These quotes help Windows know that the space after the filename isn't part of the path, 00:02:21.880 --> 00:02:25.720 and that you're instead trying to tell Windows to do something else. 00:02:25.720 --> 00:02:29.360 And there are other disallowed characters that you may not see unless you're using 00:02:29.360 --> 00:02:32.640 the command line instead of the typical Windows GUI. 00:02:32.640 --> 00:02:35.680 The greater and less than symbols fall into this category, for example. 00:02:35.680 --> 00:02:39.640 For the other characters and uses that we don't have time for today, I'm sure some 00:02:39.640 --> 00:02:46.000 of you can discuss those in the comments and help us out. Of course, Windows approach to this isn't always super intuitive, which is why the 00:02:46.040 --> 00:02:52.760 frustration stems to begin with. You can still use periods in a filename, even though the last period denotes the beginning 00:02:52.760 --> 00:02:58.400 of the extension, which tells Windows what kind of file it is, so that's a little inconsistent. 00:02:58.400 --> 00:03:02.600 And why can't you, for example, use a colon later on in the filename as it's typically 00:03:02.600 --> 00:03:06.600 just the first one in the path that denotes a drive letter? 00:03:06.600 --> 00:03:09.880 Sometimes characters are restricted simply to avoid confusion, and I get this, can be 00:03:09.880 --> 00:03:15.240 frustrating, but you can always substitute my personal favorite, the semicolon, right? 00:03:15.640 --> 00:03:21.040 So thanks for watching, guys. If you liked this video, give it a thumbs up, hit subscribe, and be sure to hit us up 00:03:21.040 --> 00:03:25.120 in the comments section with your suggestions for topics that we should cover in the future.