how is it possible to give illegal names to a file or folder is winxp?

[Delphianrex]

hi all people out there

i was wondering if there is a trick in windowsxp to give

illegal names to any file or folder like these: <:> or NULL etc.

i want to make a folder inaccessible in my flash memory but i dont want to use

any application to lock it(because the user will underestand it is locked).

thanks in advence

[lovercapo]

well first you will have to make batch file with extension .bat and type this:

" ren xxxx xxxx.{101193C0-0BFE-11D0-AF91-00AA00B67A42} " without "" replace the xxxxx with the folder's name you want to lock.

if you want to unlock it make new batch file and type :

" ren xxxxxxx.{101193C0-0BFE-11D0-AF91-00AA00B67A42} xxxxxxxx " also without "" and replace the xxxxx with the folder's name you want to unlock.

it works

btw don't worry the folder will look normal , no special icon or something the user wont know it's locked , but he can't access into it

[DeadDude]

how does this lock the folder? I mean, does it rename it? or make it encrypted, or what?

If I use this on a flash drive, lose the drive... could someone else get the data back out easily? keyword is easily.

Could a virus scanner actually scan inside that folder and fix stuff?

Sounds like a way I could stash install exes on client pcs...

[Idontwantspam]

Use a real encryption tool, like truecrypt. Hiding your data will NOT secure it. Truecrpyt is a cinch to install on the machines you need it on, and you can disguise the encryption file as a normal file of any sort, or just encrypt the whole partition.

[Delphianrex]

Thank you very much dear Lovercapo

it was a nice trick.

but may you answer Deaddude`s questions too?

because they are some of my questions too.

thanks again for your reply

[Delphianrex]

Thank you very much dear Lovercapo.

it was exactly what i needed but i`ve got into trouble with it in winxpSP3.

it seems that it doesnt work in XPsp3.

i have another question, how is it possible to use illegal name for any file or folder???

[Tripredacus]

You don't need the registry to do it. You just use the ASCII code to type illegal characters. I used to use this in Windows 98 to create folders. People wouldn't be able to open the folder, delete it or anything. It would give a file system error. But in XP it can still open the folder even if you give it a non-standard "character" so I don't see the point really.

You might want to look up that trick of embedding a JPG onto a RAR or ZIP file to make it act like a picture but you could open it with WinRAR or whatever and get your files out.

[frog357]

Reverse engineer this process:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/120716

Basically you create a directory like this:

mkdir \\.\d:\temp\com1

[Delphianrex]

Hey both of them were really interesting tricks

but i think using illegal characters is better.I`ve been able to rename some folders to nul,com1,etc

by unlocker but it doesn`t accept :,< and etc.

one more thing, I have used some disk editors like Winhex to do that and it worked but even if you rename it again to a legal name, it says that its not accessible!!!

Does anybody have any idea or something????

Edited May 5, 2008 by Delphianrex

[frog357]

What you are looking for sounds like it would be best asked on a hacking board or some other forum. Any file on your computer can be accessed using the \\.\ method, so I don't see what you are trying to do here. It would be different if you were asking for help to fix something, but it sounds like you are asking for help to break something.

[Delphianrex]

dear frog357

my problem is that i wanna rename a file/folder using illegal characters like :>< etc to make it unaccessible in every case like safemode, other OS etc.

but "lovercapo" gave that code to do it and unfortunately i got that it doesnt work anymore in SP3.

so i want to know if there is any cheat to use illegal characters or not.

I`ve used WinHex to do it but after using this app(any diskeditor), the disk will be corrupted.

[Mijzelf]

I`ve used WinHex to do it but after using this app(any diskeditor), the disk will be corrupted.

Yes of course. Illegal characters are, well, illegal. When you have any of them in your filenames the disk is corrupt.