zabkat support forum

here's the comment area for today's blog post found at
https://www.zabkat.com/blog/cleanup-filenames.htm

Once upon a time there were strict rules about filenames, only a few characters were allowed (nevermind the 8.3 letter limitation). Now, except for a few special characters like : and \ that are reserved for paths, anything goes in filenames. However cute adding smileys and hearts in your documents may be, you may run into trouble e.g. if you want to transfer files to a different, more restrictive file system.

Your Windows-centric point of view amuses me. There are very few file systems which are more restrictive than NTFS, at least in its default configuration. (Although one can turn on case sensitivity.)

The Windows 10 explorer will show a little popup when you try to add these characters to a filename:

\ / : ? * " < > |

xplorer2 does not complain if you try to rename a file using these illegal characters but it automatically replaces them with _ when you press enter

however sometimes if you rename a file to a single illegal character x2 apparently allows it but when the file list is refreshed you see that the illegal character was replaced with _ as expected

Yes, I see that " is replaced by _ in 4.4.0.1.

Didn't earlier versions replace it with '' (two single-quotes)?

I added a registry tweak to adjust the replacing character other than _

FrizzleFry wrote: ↑2020 Sep 22, 11:15 The Windows 10 explorer will show a little popup when you try to add these characters to a filename:

\ / : ? * " < > |

I think it's total bullocks that Windows can't be programmed to allow these characters in file names. It's a friggin computer and will do whatever it's told. The number of times I've wanted to use a colon or question mark in a filename is frustrating.

but if you use colons in filenames, it could be mixed up with a path separator (ok only if it is in position #2)