Legacy DOS device path resolution information incorrect on Windows 11 machine

[mmashwani]

Type of issue

Outdated article

Description

The following information about how legacy DOS device paths are parsed is inaccurate on the Windows 11 machine I tested it on.

#A path that begins with a legacy device name is always interpreted as a legacy device by the Path.GetFullPath(String) method. For example, the DOS device path for CON.TXT is \.\CON, and the DOS device path for COM1.TXT\file1.txt is \.\COM1.

I did the following test in PowerShell:

• [System.IO.Path]::GetFullPath('CON.TXT') ==> C:\Users\{UserName}\CON.TXT
• [System.IO.Path]::GetFullPath('COM1.TXT\file1.txt') ==> C:\Users\{UserName}\COM1.TXT\file1.txt

Page URL

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/io/file-path-formats

Content source URL

https://github.com/dotnet/docs/blob/main/docs/standard/io/file-path-formats.md

Document Version Independent Id

716a28dc-360e-2964-47f5-0ff18bb00b1c

Article author

@adegeo

Metadata

• ID: b74b99ff-32f8-c2d1-0a62-5907985f591e
• Service: dotnet-fundamentals

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Associated WorkItem - 275386

[adegeo]

Thank you for reporting this. I verified that this is a change in Win11 as Win10 operates as documented.